Angel's Eleven
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: Response to Lee's 'Angel's Eleven' challenge. Liam Angelus, exprivate eye, fresh out of prison, has some unfinished business to attend to, a woman whose love he must win back... and an estranged son he wishes to know
1. The Mastermind

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.__  
__  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

Getting up from his hard bed, Liam Angelus, ex-private detective, known to all his friends and enemies as 'Angel', was escorted out of his cell and taken down towards the interview.

Sitting down in front of the 'tribunal' that would decide his fate, Angel briefly reflected this would be a blessing; at least he'd finally get it over and done with, whatever else happened to him.

"Please state your name for the record," one of them said.

"Liam Angelus," he replied, nodding briefly at the man who'd spoken, wishing he'd been able to shave his stubble; he felt like a hobo.

"Thank you," the table's only woman said. "Mr. Angelus, the purpose of this meeting is to determine whether, if released, you are likely to break the law again. While this was your first conviction, you have been implicated, though never charged, in over a dozen other confidence schemes and frauds. What can you tell us about this?"

Angel shrugged. "As you say, ma'am, I was only implicated," he said, trying to sound casual. "As you're probably aware, in those cases, I was mostly responsible for bringing the criminals involved in the trial to court; I never actually committed any crimes myself."

"Mr Angelus," the second man at the table put in, "what we're trying to establish is, was there a reason you chose to commit this crime, or was there a reason why you simply got caught this time?"

Angel thought about it, and shrugged.

"My girlfriend had left me," he said eventually. "I was angry, frustrated; I wanted to vent my frustration on the people I blamed for the incident in question. I entered a fairly… destructive phase in my life, I guess."

The 'tribunal' looked at each other thoughtfully, and then the woman looked back at Angel.

"If released, is it likely you would fall back into a similar phase?" she asked him.

Angel stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling for a few moments, before shaking his head.

"She already left me once; I don't think she'd do it again just for the heck of it," he said. "Besides, the people I blamed for it are as good as gone now; who'd I attack?"

"And, have you any ideas what you would _do _if you got out?" the second man asked.

Angel shrugged. "Try the detective thing again, I guess," he shrugged. "After all, it went pretty well the last time; might as well see if I still have the knack for it."

Then he smiled. "Besides, next time I'm here, I'd rather _not _be the prisoner, know what I mean?"

One of the men smiled slightly at that, and Angel clenched his fists in celebration.

He was free…

* * *

A couple of hours later, Angel found himself standing outside the prison gates, dressed once again in his favored attire; black leather duster, dark trousers, a dark blue shirt, and black shoes. He was also wearing a small silver claddagh ring on his left ring finger with the heart pointing inwards, and a pair of dark sunglasses covered his eyes.

Looking around at the open air around him, unconfined by cages for the first time in five years, Angel took his first step out into free America….

* * *

… And walked straight into a large, private, Los Angeles casino that he'd frequented a bit during his 'wilder' period.

Taking off his glasses, Angel looked casually around the casino, smiling a little at the site. He knew it probably wasn't his smartest move, given the low amount of money on his person at present, but if he was going to at least get started, he'd need a bit more.

Besides….

He stared down at the folded newspaper in his hand, and the tall, fairly handsome dark-haired man in the photograph on the front page, standing beside someone who couldn't quite be seen.

Parker Abrams.

He growled, low in his throat.

He had some unfinished business to attend to.

Walking over to the nearest blackjack table, Angel sat down and waited a few seconds for the dealer to deal out the cards. Briefly looking around, he sighed in regret- evidently, more things had changed in the world than just him.

He looked back down at his cards. Nine-ten; he was staying in. The dealer- seventeen.

Angel smiled; even after five years, he still had it.

The next cards were dealt out. Angel had a king-four. Dealer? Showing a six. Angel decided to stick with it, and the dealer busted.

Another hand; Queen-ace. Twenty-one. Angel had won again.

He took the money back, looked up at the dealer…

And blinked in surprise.

"Gunn?" he said, staring at the man in front of him in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

The tall, handsome black man behind the table, looking rather out-of-place in his crisp white shirt and dark red waistcoat, looked up at him with an apparent expression of surprise on his face.

"Gunn?" he said, casually. "I'm sorry, sir, you've got me confused with someone else. I'm Ramon, see?" he said, indicating his badge.

Angel smiled slightly. "Sorry; my mistake," he said, picking up his chips. "It's been a while since I saw my friend; he used to hang around here a lot, and I assumed you were him."

"Easy mistake to make," 'Ramon' said dismissively. "You want to find your friend, I recommend the lounge at the Grand; it gets busy around one."

Angel nodded his tanks, and then turned around and walked out of the building.

* * *

A few hours later, at one, Angel was casually sipping a fresh pint of Guinness, and staring blankly at the newspaper in his hand.

"Catching up on current events?" a voice said.

Looking up, Angel smiled as Gunn sat down opposite him at the booth.

"'Ramon'?" he asked, teasingly. "All those times we worked undercover, and the best you could come up with was 'Ramon'?"

Gunn shrugged. "I was desperate for some cash," he shrugged. "Besides, you know as well as I do these kind of places don't want someone with a record on their payroll."

Angel sighed. "You need to get over that, Gunn; it was a long time ago."

"Yeah, I know," Gunn said, smiling. Then his face hardened as he stared at Angel. "But blowing up a law firm didn't exactly help matters, you know."

Angel sighed again, and looked up at Gunn.

"We all knew the risks, Gunn," he said. "Believe me, I know that better than anyone; I lost five years of my life because of the risks." He shrugged casually. "Still, we have to move on."

He looked over at Gunn again. "Seen Wesley recently?"

Gunn shrugged. "Last I heard he was downtown, teaching some actors some new tricks."

"Meaning cards?" Angel asked casually.

"Yeah, probably," Gunn said, smiling. "Still, can't deny it might come in useful for _some _kind of future project." He looked back at Angel. "Why? You don't have something planned already?"

Angel looked at Gunn in mock horror. "Gunn, I just got out of _prison_," he said, in a horrified tone. "A _job _is the _last _thing on my mind."

Gunn smiled at the look on his ex-boss's face.

He _did _have something planned.

How could they not? The business wasn't finished yet.

"What's the target now?" he asked. "I mean, most of the big shots went down or fell out of business when we took out the building. The only parts of their branch that _weren't _ruined were…"

"Casinos," Angel said, pulling the paper out and passing it to Gunn. "Read that; I have to go and see Wesley."


	2. Old Friends

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.__  
__  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

**Moonjava:** Thanks; it's the first time I've taken a challenge fic, so I'm glad to know it's going down well

**Imzadi:** Gwen will be here, but the others? Sorry; it ain't happening (Although Fred _might _crop up in a sequel…)

**Leevee:** Thanks for that; I was a bit worried about whether that reasoning would work

**-J:** Fair point about the Gunn thing; maybe I'll have him get in a slug at Parker at some point… Oh, and regarding the casting, I assure you I haven't _forgotten _Fred; I just didn't think she'd work for any of the parts we have here.

**Flaire Delacour with Faith:** Trust me, I'm working a few extra little twists that you _definitely _won't find in the movie…

**Tariq:** Hope I didn't keep you waiting

**ka-mia2286: **It'll be born in mind, but I don't want to diverge _too _far from the plot… Besides, what if I want to write a sequel?

Angel's Eleven

Wesley stepped out of his car, idly scratched the day-old stubble on his chin, and looked over at the man who'd called him down; Topher Grace, a young, up-and-coming actor.

"Hey, Wes," he said, smiling slightly at the other man. "Glad you could make it."

"You're welcome," Wesley said, as he walked into the club, Topher behind him. "Who's here tonight?"

"The regulars," Topher said casually. "Shane, Hollie, Danny, Amy… you know, the usual crowd."

Wesley smiled slightly at that. He'd never admit it to Topher, but he actually enjoyed the company of this group; Danny John-Jules had been involved in one of his favourite comedy shows back in Britain, Shane's role in _LXG _had won him a prominent place in Wesley's personal opinion, he rather enjoyed _Charmed_ (Although he would have denied it under torture), and Amy…

Wesley sighed.

She always reminded him a little of Fred…

Turning into the room, he glanced around to make sure the others were all already sitting down before he started talking.

"All right then, we're going to play five card poker," he said, looking around at the five actors. "You all remember the rules, correct? Danny, you deal," he said, as he threw the pack of cards to the tall, dark-skinned male.

Danny dealt the cards and Ron, looking around at his neighbour's cards, sighed slightly; they _still _couldn't quite get the hang of shielding their cards from their opponent's sight...

"Get rid of that card," he said to Hollie. She threw the card he pointed to towards Danny, trying to look casual.

"Hit me," she said, trying to match her casual appearance with an equally laid-back tone.

"That's black-jack, Hollie, this is poker," Wesley said firmly.

She blushed slightly at that, but, to her credit, she didn't back down. As everyone traded in their cards, Wesley looked around at the other players critically, sighing as his eyes fell on Shane's cards.

"Shane, this is a five card game, why do you have six cards?" he asked.

"Hit me?" Amy called out inquiringly.

"I bet…" Topher said, thoughtfully, before tossing a few chips into the middle of the table, "…$1000." He glanced over at Wesley. "How's that, Wes?"

Wesley sighed. He needed a drink. Fast.

* * *

Sipping at his drink as he sat in the bar, Wesley found himself wondering how it had come to this. Where had it all gone wrong for him? One moment, he was a member of an often-used and well-admired law firm, with contacts all over the place and several solved cases under their belts, and the next…

Wesley sighed again.

And the next, here he was, teaching actors how to play cards, and apparently failing dismally despite all his best efforts.

"How's the game going?" the barman asked, looking over at Wesley.

"The longest hour of my life," Wesley replied, his chin slumped into his left hand as he sipped at the glass in his right.

"What?" the barman asked.

Wesley rolled his eyes. "I'm running away with your wife!" he said, deciding it couldn't hurt to see how loud things actually were.

The barman smiled. "Yeah, it's great, isn't it?" he said, as he turned around and began to serve another customer.

Wesley groaned again. It was official; he was bored.

_Where did I go wrong…_ he mused to himself.

* * *

As Wesley returned to the room, Topher turned to look back at him in his seat. "Hey, Wes, we got another player, if that's alright," he said, indicating across the table.

Wesley looked up…

And his jaw almost dropped.

_Angel? _He thought, as he took in the sight of his former boss sitting in front of him. _What's he doing here?_

Angel just smiled up at his old friend, in a manner that almost looked like he was seeing Wesley for the first time. Wesley privately noted that; Angel must have a reason for not wanting their past relationship obvious; he'd have to be sure to stick with it.

"The bouncer mentioned there was a game in progress," Angel explained, shrugging casually. "I hope I'm not intruding."

"No intrusion at all," Topher began to assure him, before Wesley spoke up.

"What was his name, the bouncer's?" he said, looking inquiringly at Angel

Angel shrugged non-committedly. "I don't remember."

Wesley faked a slight smile, grateful for all his years undercover in the detective agency. "A card player with amnesia," he said casually. "This should be fun."

Wesley sat down and began to deal the next hand.

"So, what do you do for a living, Mr. Angelus?" Hollie asked, looking inquiringly over at Angel. "If you don't mind my asking, that is?"

"Please, call me Angel; everyone does," Angel said, smiling at her. "Anyway, why should I mind you asking?"

He looked over at Wesley. "Two cards, please," he said casually, before turning back to look at Hollie. "Actually, I just got out of prison."

"Really?" Danny said, exchanging a surprised glance among the other players.

"What'd you, uh, go to prison for?" Shane asked, looking over at Angel.

"I blew up a law firm," Angel said, as he casually studied his cards. "I made sure nobody was in the building at the time- only documents and machinery were damaged by the blast- but you know how it is."

"Oh," Amy said, before looking back at Angel. "You, uh, do that kind of thing regularly?"

"Not really," Angel said, smiling over at her. "I assure you I'm not an arsonist; I just figured it was the only way to stop them. They'd been responsible for funding several crimes in this city; I wanted them taken care of."

He turned back to the table and tossed a few chips onto the table. "I raise you five hundred dollars," he said simply.

A hush fell over the room; even the amateurs knew that Angel had thrown down the gauntlet. He and Wesley held each other's stares for a time, before Wesley smiled slightly.

"Everyone, think back to Day One: what's the first rule of poker?"

"Um, never bet on, uh, on a-" Danny began, before Tohper interrupted.

"'Leave emotion at the door'," he said, looking over at Wesley.

"That's right," Wesley said, indicating Angel. "My friend here just raised me out of pique."

He waited a beat, and then continued speaking. "Today's lesson; how to draw out a bluff. This early in the game, that much money, I'm thinking he's holding nothing better than a pair of face cards."

He glanced over at Shane. "Raise him."

"Okay…" Shane said thoughtfully, as he looked down at his cards. "Uh, your five hundred and..."

He glanced over at Wesley. "Another two?"

Wesley nodded, and Seth pushed in his chips.

Wesley glanced over at Tohper. "Tophe..." he said, promptingly.

Topher smiled and tossed in a few chips. "Seven to me. Plus three. What the hell?" he said, looking over at Wesley with a grin on his face.

"Indeed," Wesley said, nodding approvingly at his 'pupil'. "But be careful you don't push him too high too fast; you want to keep him on the leash. I call."

"What's that to me?" Danny asked, looking over at Wesley. "A thousand?"

Wesley shrugged casually. "All you have to do is call."

Angel, noticing Danny's hesitation, smiled casually. "What?" he asked "Your girlfriend holding your purse?"

That did it; Danny was in. The bet was now Angel's. He checks his hand, and Shane started to whisper over to Topher.

Angel smiled as he glanced over at Shane. "Contrary to what Mr. Wyndym-Pryce may say, Shane, I always check my cards before I make a bet. But be careful. I could tell from your face you're holding three of a kind or better."

Digging his wallet out, he pulled out a few notes and tossed them onto the pile. "Five hundred to call," he said, before pulling out another few notes. "And two grand more."

The others at the table hesitated, and Wesley took the opportunity to speak.

"Everyone, you're free to do what you like," Wesley said, looking around at the others. "After all, it's a lot of money. But I'm staying in. He's trying to buy his way out of his bluff."

Nobody looked too eager to call, but nobody wanted to leave a grand on the table, either. Finally, Amy paid up, and the others- not be outdone- did the same.

"We call," Wesley said simply.

Angel set down his hand; Four nines. A winner. The others, jaws dropped, threw in their cards.

For the first time that night, Wesley blanched. Angel had been away in prison for _five years_; how could he just _do _that so easily?

"Shit…" Wesley said under his breath, before looking around at the others. "Sorry, everyone. I- I was sure he was bluffing."

As Wesley's professional status rapidly plummeted in the estimation of all the others at the table around him, Angel raked in his pot.

"Thanks for the game, fellas," he said, smiling around briefly at them all as he walked out of the room.

Wesley looked around at the various actors, shrugged helpless, got up, and walked on out after him.

* * *

Sitting in his car, Angel looked casually over at his old friend as Wesley stepped into the passenger seat beside him.

Wesley sighed as he looked over at Angel. "You know, you could have come up with a less humiliating way to drop in," he said casually.

Angel shrugged. "I wanted to see how things were going for you hands-on," he explained, as he started to drive the car away.

"You got the beer I sent you?" Wesley asked casually.

"Why do you think I came to see you first?" Angel replied.

Then his face became more professional once again. "We've got some unfinished business."

Wesley almost felt his face fall. He couldn't believe it; barely out of jail for a day, and Angel was _already _planning another strike at their old adversaries…

Then again, he couldn't exactly say he hadn't wanted to get in a stab at them as well; he hated what they'd done to his new home when they'd been active all those years ago.

* * *

A few hours later, to the two men faced each other in a bar as Angel spoke.

"It's risky," he said, as he took a quick sip of his beer, leaving Wesley munching casually on a packet of nuts as he sipped at his own drink. "Nobody's ever done it before. But, if we pull it off, not only to we deal another blow at Wolfram & Hart, but we get some cash out of it."

"How much?" Wesley asked.

Angel smiled. "Eight figures each."

Wesley blinked, but quickly recovered.

He had to admit, _this_ sounded interesting…

"What's the target?" he said.

Angel smiled. "You ever been to Vegas?" he asked.

Wesley paled. "You want to knock over a _casino_!" he whispered.

Angel raised three fingers.

Wesley swallowed.

Three _casinos! _he thought to himself.

Maybe he'd misjudged Angel's state of mind this time….


	3. The Billionaire

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

**Flaire Delacour with Faith:** That's a relief; trust me, it isn't all that easy writing something like this

**Imzadi:** Well, you've got a chapter or two to wait until the rest of them show up, but the money guy will be appearing here, I promise you that…

**kalaong:** Good guess, but I can't confirm any of them. I'll just say this; Lorne is NOT appearing here. I'm sorry to all his fans, but I can only ever see him as the green-skinned guy with the little red horns, and if he's not that, well… he's not Lorne, is he?

**a2zmom:** Believe me, I'll be trying to work in my own little twists as well; I don't like those stories that just give the movies a different cast list any more than you do

Angel's Eleven

"Here it is," Angel said, spreading the plans out in front of them in the small office he and Wesley had managed to get to themselves for the next few hours. "The vault of the Bellagio casino."

Wesley looked at it for a few seconds, and sighed. "You know, if I'm reading this right, this is probably the least accessible vault ever designed," he said.

Then he shook his head. "No, scratch that; it _is _the most inaccessible vault ever designed."

Then a thought occurred to him and he looked up at Angel. "You said three casinos?" he asked hopefully; evidently, he was guessing the other two were more accessable.

Angel shook his head, tapping a couple of extra doors on the map. "These feed into the Mirage and the MGM Grand," he explained. "Every dime ends up here, but the three casinos operate pretty much independently of each other otherwise."

"Wait a minute…" Wesley said, a thought occurring to him. He looked over at Angel. "The Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand? Aren't those…?"

"Yep; Parker Abrams' casinos," Angel replied. He smiled slightly as he looked up at Wesley. "What; you thought I'd just be doing this for the cash?" His expression instantly became professional again. "You know as well as I do that, if he hadn't had the connections he'd had with those guys, he could _never_ have done as well as he has."

He tapped the plan again. "He's the last link in the chain, Wesley; take him down, and we're done."

Wesley sighed as he looked up at his friend. "Angel, this isn't like that time we stole that so-called 'Turin Shroud' of theirs to prevent the situation getting out of hand and people dying to claim it," he said. "_Then _the Shroud was both a fake and illegally acquired by its current owner. Here, the casino is perfectly legitimate, and we don't have another group planning the same scam that we can infiltrate. You would need at least a dozen people pulling off a dozen different kinds of cons, and that's even _before _you factor in the money we're going to need!"

Angel smiled. "That's already taken care of, Wes; aren't you forgetting that a certain reclusive billionaire owes us a favour or two?"

Wesley stared in confusion at Angel for a few seconds, and then realisation dawned.

"David Nabbit?" he asked.

Angel nodded. "David Nabbit."

* * *

A few minutes later, the two men were standing at the door of the elevator, Angel clutching copies of the casino plans in his right hand. Wesley was shifting slightly, looking uneasily around him as they waited, until, finally, Angel couldn't take any more.

"Is there a problem, Wesley?" he asked, looking over curiously at his friend.

"Well… yes, actually," Wesley replied, looking back at his friend, reaching up at the same time to remove his new half moon spectacles and clean them slightly. "A simple question; why do this?"

"Why not?" Angel shrugged.

Wesley sighed. "Angel, you just got out of prison after five _years_, in case you've forgotten," he said, turning to face his friend. "We lost enough the last time; are you really prepared to-"

Angel held up one hand to stop Wesley, and regarded him critically.

"Believe me, Wesley, I know what the risks are," he said. "You know me; you know what I've lost to bring me here. But I'm not just doing this for me. I'm doing this because, for all our attempts, they're still active in these three casinos; I'm doing this because we need to show them that, no matter how powerful they are, there's always someone to fight them; but, most of all, I'm doing this because I am _not_ going to have lost… lost _them _for nothing…"

He glared at Wesley. "Are you?"

Wesley knew he was primarily referring to, of course; the loss of Francis Doyle and Cordelia Chase stayed prominently in his mind even after all these years. Doyle had given his life to save a shipload of innocent Koreans who would have become slave labour if their foes had their way, and Cordelia had been poisoned by those… those _things_; he could never think of them as human after that… simply to hurt them.

Of course, there were other losses, but Wesley was pretty sure Angel wasn't referring to them…

Wesley looked curiously at Angel. "Have you been practicing that?"

"A little," Angel said. "Did I rush it; it felt like I rushed it-"

"No, that was good; I liked it," Wesley said. "I'm in."

"Good," Angel said, as the two of them stepped into the elevator. "Now, all we need to do is convince David."

* * *

"You're _OUT _of your _goddamn MINDS_!" Nabbit said, looking at the two of them from across his table. "You can't seriously expect to rob _one_ casino, never mind _three_!"

"It's never been tried," Wesley said.

"Actually, it has been," Nabbit said, looking over at Wesley critically. "Didn't you know that, Wes? The best three jobs, in reverse order, made it three steps away before being tackled to the ground, actually reached the door before getting their nose whacked in, _and _got shot in the back in the car park!" He looked back at them from beneath his sunglasses. "You think you can do any better?"

"Times have changed," Angel said simply.

Nabbit smiled, almost seeming to calm down. "You know, you're right, Angel," he said, looking over at the ex-convict. "What am I saying; you guys are the best. You broke into a vault designed to hold what many thought was a _holy relic_; compared to that, security for mere money is child's play. If you can't do it, nobody can."

Then his face hardened. "Of course, even if you get out of the casino, you're still in the middle of the _fucking DESERT_!" he yelled.

Angel and Wesley looked at each other, and shrugged.

"David, you're right," Angel said. "Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs."

"That's exactly it; pure ego," Wesley said casually.

"Yeah yeah, blah blah," Nabbit said, waving one hand dismissively.

"Thank you so much for setting us straight," Angel smiled casually. "Sorry we bothered you."

"Look, we all go way back," Nabbit said, as the two men got up and he shook their hands. "I owe you from that thing with the guy in the place, and I'll never forget it."

"It was a blackmail case," Wesley said simply.

"And it was our pleasure," Angel added. "You're a good guy, David; the world could use more millionaires like you."

"Thanks," Nabbit said, taking a sip of his drink as the two ex-detectives began to walk away. "Just out of curiosity, which casinos did you geniuses pick to rob?" he called after them.

"Um… lemme think…" Angel said, before snapping his fingers. "Got it; the Bellagio, Mirage, and the M.G.M. Grand,"

Nabbit blinked in surprise, and, putting his drink back down, looked up at the two men. "Those are Parker Abrams's casinos," he said simply.

"You know, he's right," Wesley said, sounding almost surprised at the point.

"You guys..." David said, looking between the two of them. "Whadda you got against Parker Abrams?"

Angel smiled. "What do _you_ have against him, David? That's the _real_ question here."

Nabbit growled slightly at the thought. "He torpedoed my casino," he said, looking between the two of them. "Then he muscled me out, and now he's gonna blow it up next month to make way for another fuckin' eyesore."

He raised a warning finger. "Don't think I don't see what you're doin'."

"What are we doing, David?" Wesley asked politely.

"You gonna steal from Parker Abrams, you better goddamn know," Nabbit said, looking over at the ex-librarian. "This sort of thing used to be civilized. You'd hit a guy; he'd hit you back; that'd be that. But Abrams..."

Nabbit shuddered, and then continued. "You know his connections, guys. At the end of this he better not know you're involved, not know your names, or think you're dead. Because he'll kill you, and then he'll go to work on you.

"That's why we've got to be very careful if we're going to cripple him like this," Angel explained. "We have to be precise. We have to be well-funded."

"Yeah, but you've gotta be nuts, too," Nabbit said. "And you're gonna need a crew as nuts as you are."

He paused for a few moments, and then spoke again. "Who do you have in mind?"

Angel and Wesley smiled over at each other.

The game was on…


	4. The Dealer, the Drivers, and the Hacker

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

**Melluvben: **Hope I don't disappoint

**Jojo Momo: **David Nabbit was a billionaire who was being blackmailed and hired Angel to help him (He helped Angel buy the Hyperion in return) and Parker Abrams was the first person Buffy slept with after Angel left, but he regarded it as only a bit of fun and then pretended he'd done nothing wrong.

**Night Essence:** Here you go; the rest of the Eleven are coming in…

**Imzadi:** Yeah, Wolfram & Hart were involved, but it'll take a while before we learn more details about whatthey did to her…

**YelloSparkStardust:** Good to hear, because I have to confess I have NO idea who Topher Grace is; I got the name from the novelization of the movie

**SpikingJennsAngel:** Sorry, not happening; I absolutely HATE m/m slash with a passion.

**A2zmom: **Glad to hear it; I contemplated just making him a criminal, but, for me, Angel must always be the good guy.

**Tariq: **Spike's showing up soon, but as for Xander… Well, you've got a while yet.

**Melanthe Vida:** Glad to hear it; hope I continue to keep you entertained.

**C'est Magnifique: **Yeah, Lorne would have been a good choice, but I couldn't do it; for me, if Lorne isn't the guy with green skin and red horns, he's not Lorne, so how could I write something featuring him as just a normal human?

Angel's Eleven

"So, who's in?" Wesley asked, as he and Angel sat in a restaurant a few hours later, Wesley casually eating a bacon sandwich while Angel sipped at some newly-purchased beer.

"Well, Gunn's in," Angel explained, looking over at Angel. "He got a job as a blackjack dealer here, but he's developed a bad case of bronchitis and has requested a transference to warmer climates."

"Vegas?" Wesley asked casually.

"Naturally," Angel said, nodding. He smiled slightly as he remembered Gunn's description of events, him signing the transference forms while coughing madly into his right hand…

He chuckled. _Who said you can't mix business with pleasure? _He thought to himself; all Gunn had to do was cough now and again, and he'd scored a free holiday in Vegas.

"Who are you getting for transportation?" Wesley asked, looking inquiringly at Angel.

"The Raiden sisters still about?" Angel asked, looking up at Wesley.

Wesley blinked in surprise.

"The… the Raiden sisters?" he asked, looking at Angel. "Are you sure about that?"

Angel looked confused for a few seconds, then sighed and his expression changed to one of sympathy.

"Look, I know you're a bit touchy about them, what with what they did to you and all…" he said, trying to avoid the issue.

"'Touchy'? Angel, they _tortured _me just to get information about how to infiltrate that bank!" Wesley yelled angrily back at his friend.

"Yes, I know, but… look, you know they got past that phase, right?" Angel asked, staring back at his friend. "After all the effort that I went through just to convince them to take responsibility for their actions, I'm not going to have you ruin that because you don't like them."

* * *

At an old, out-of-business racetrack somewhere down in Salt Lake City, a large truck, driven by a stunning brunette dressed in form-hugging black leather, halted behind a long white line painted on the track. Beside her car was a smaller one, almost a toy, and a similar-looking brunette with curlier hair and dressed in red leather was sitting on a seat beside the track.

The brunette in black leather was Faith Raiden, a former mob killer who was now trying to leave her past behind her. The red-clad one was her sister Gwen, whose primary specialty was cat-burglary, and had less of an official criminal record than her sister due to her stealth abilities.

But, right now, they weren't two ex-convicts; they were just two sisters, preparing for a bit of a race.

"Ready?" Faith asked, calling over to her sister.

Gwen raised the remote for the car and nodded. "Ready," she said to her sister.

Instantly, the two cars tore forward, Gwen's smaller car rapidly outmanoeuvring Faith's larger model; its small size made it far easier to turn around the larger car, and its lack of bulk to weigh it down was also a distinct help.

But even as the small truck tore up the track, the life-size model, its driver smiling wickedly, swung the steering-wheel sharply to the left, rolling over the toy car before proceeding to the finish line.

Gwen swore under her breath, jabbing her right middle finger up at her sister.

* * *

"Besides," Angel said, as Wesley took another sip of his beer, "I get the impression they're having trouble filling the hours; this job could help them do something practical with their lives."

Wesley sighed as he put the drink down, looking back at his friend.

"Well, maybe you're right," he said, nodding slightly at his friend. "Do you have any candidates for surveillance yet?"

Angel shook his head. "Why; you have a suggestion?" he asked his friend.

"Indeed," Wesley said, nodding at his old friend. "Willow."

Angel looked up in surprise at that.

"Willow?" he said, raising a startled eyebrow. "Why?"

"Oh, right; you haven't heard," Wesley said, smiling slightly at his absent-mindedness in an only partly serious manner. "Since you were sent to prison, Willow's started doing surveillance work for the F.B.I. in a freelance capacity. She's become a professional hacker, really; she can now hack into pretty much everything that has even the slightest bit of internet access."

Angel blinked. "Really?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

Then a thought occurred to him. "Would she be interested?"

"In stopping Wolfram & Hart?" Wesley asked, looking back at Angel. "Angel, after what they did to you, do you really think she wouldn't be? You know as well as I do that she was also supportive of you two as a couple; I highly doubt she's forgiven them for breaking you up."

* * *

Willow sighed as she sat in the monitoring van, her fingers flying over the controls to her computers and video monitors. She seemed completely focused on the job at hand, but then she suddenly reached out one hand and grabbed the hand of one of the FBI agents as he began to reach towards a monitor control.

"D-don't touch that," she said, inwardly cursing as she spoke; she'd gotten better over the years, but her childhood stammer still came back at moments like this.

"What?" the agent asked, looking over at her.

"Do you s-see _me _taking the gun out of your holster and w-waving it around?" Willow asked, trying to sound at least fairly casual.

"Hey, radio shack, relax, will you?" the second said to her.

Willow sighed.

She _really _needed to find a better career move…

* * *

"Grease man?" Angel asked, looking up at Wesley. "If we're bringing Willow in, how about Tara?"

"Dead," Wesley said sadly. "She died two or three years ago."

"Oh," Angel said. "How?"

"A deranged gunman was trying to take out Willow after her surveillance work helped the FBI gather evidence to imprison his superiors," Wesley explained. "He attacked Willow while she and Tara were out on a date, and… well, Tara took the bullets for Willow."

Wesley sighed and took a sip of beer. "Willow spent at least six months in trauma therapy after that. She's mostly gotten over it- we never mention Tara these days- but, well, she always gets a bit angrier around the time of the 'anniversary'."

"Ah," Angel said, regretfully; he'd never had the chance to really get to know Tara, but he'd always assumed he'd be able to do it when he got out of prison. After all, she had always seemed like a nice person whenever they'd met in the past…

But now, he'd never have that opportunity.

He sighed and took a brief sip of his drink, before looking back at Wesley.

"Ideas for a replacement?" he asked the ex-watcher.

Wesley nodded. "One," he said.


	5. The Acrobat, the Bomber, and the Pro

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.  
__  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

**Imzadi: **Yeah, I know about Seth and 'The Italian Job'; pretty good movie, in my opinion. Regarding Lindsey… I'll see what I can do, but don't get your hopes up, OK?

**Vaguely amused: **Glad it's proving enjoyable

**YelloSparkStardust:** Here you are (Hope you're feeling less tired, by the way)

**a2zmom:** Well, I didn't want to diverge _too _far from basic Buffy continuity

Angel's Eleven

Angel hadn't been to a circus for several years. Not counting his childhood visits (Which he'd never really managed to get into), the last time he'd been to one of these it had been in what he thought of as his 'fuck-'em-all, I'll-do-things-my-way' phase, and he'd made a few deals that he wasn't especially proud of and didn't want to be reminded off. Still, Wesley had said that their greaseman was here, and Wesley hadn't led him wrong yet.

"How much longer do we have to wait?" he asked Wesley, who was casually eating an ice-cream cone that he'd picked up earlier because he couldn't find anything else.

"Not much longer," Wesley said, smiling as he indicated the ring. "In fact, here's our candidate right now."

Angel looked at the ring as a short man dressed in a skin-tight red outfit came on stage…

And his jaw dropped.

"Oz?" he said, looking over at Wesley in surprise. He hadn't heard from Oz since he'd broken up with Willow after being diagnosed with having contracted HIV due to a brief, passionate affair with a young woman who'd proved mentally unstable; Oz hadn't wanted to endanger Willow while he tried to find some way to keep the infection under control.

"Yes, that's right," Wesley said, smiling at Angel's surprise. "After some time, he was put on drug treatments which proved successful in containing the infection- thankfully, he caught it early enough to avert it killing him. He started doing acrobatic work to keep himself in shape during the treatment, discovered that he seemed to have a natural talent for it, and, well…" He shrugged. "Here we are."

Angel nodded thoughtfully as he watched Oz walk along a tightrope, and then curl himself up into a ball in the exact centre of the rope.

Angel looked over at Wesley and nodded. "We've got a greaseman."

"We do indeed," Wesley smiled.

* * *

"So," Angel said, as the two of them began to walk back to the car after a brief talk with Oz, "who's our candidate for explosives? Riley?"

He shuddered at that option; even though it had all been over between them long before he and Buffy began to date again, he still disliked even _thinking _about the ex-commando….

"No point; he's dead," Wesley said, as they got in the car.

Angel blinked. "What?" he said, looking over at Wesley, trying to contain his brief feeling of elation at that news; after all, annoying or not, a man _was _dead… "How? On the job?"

"Skin cancer," Wesley replied. "I couldn't send floors at the time, so I dated his wife to express my condolences instead."

Angel smirked a little at that. Same old Wes…

He ran over his other options as Wesley began to drive out of the car park.

"Spike?" he said, looking over at Wesley inquiringly. Admittedly, Spike was, if possible, even _less_ popular with him than Riley had ever been, but at least there it was more of a personal thing rather than a Buffy-thing; Spike was one of the few links left to a life that he was just trying to forget…

But, on the other hand, he _was _good with dynamite.

"We may be too later," Wesley said. "He's already on a job. And I know the people he's with; they make mistakes."

Angel sighed. "Well, we'll have to do what we can," he said, as he sat back in his chair, his index fingers raised in front of him in a thoughtful manner.

* * *

William Tennant, known to all and sundry as 'Spike', rubbed his hands together as he stared at the detonator in front of him. Looking around at his associates, he nodded his head, and, grasping the handles of the detonator, pushed down the switch, and smiled gleefully as he heard the miniature bombs he'd placed around the safe door go off.

As soon as the final explosion had died off, Spike smiled, got up, and walked out to look at the door, watching with an almost scientific detachment as it fell down due to the sudden lack of hinges.

Grinning, Spike walked into the vault, his hands already itching to get his hands on all that money…

And the alarms went off.

Spike groaned. "Oh, leave it out…" he muttered to himself, as he turned around to look at his associates in an exasperated manner.

"Warren!" he yelled at the self-proclaimed 'leader' of this job (Although Spike sometimes felt that _he _was the one who should be calling the shots; at least he had more experience in this sort of thing). "You had _one _bloody job to do, damnit!"

"S-sorry, Mr. Tennant…" Warren stammered nervously.

"Oh, bloody hell…" Spike said to himself, as he stared up at the ceiling.

* * *

Spike rolled his eyes as he stared at the cop in front of him, his hands cuffed behind his back in a manner that was embarrassing more than anything else.

"So, you're sure that's all you used in the operation?" the cop asked, as he made notes on the pad in front of him.

"What?" Spike asked, looking at the man in an insulted manner. "Are you implying I'd use booby traps?"

"Those aren't Mr Tennant's style," a voice said from off to the side. Looking over in the direction of the voice, Spike blinked in surprise.

_Wesley_? he thought to himself, taking in the sight of the former librarian dressed in a long fawn coat over a dark suit, in a manner that could pass as a detective if he was lucky. _What's he doing here?_

"You are?" the cop asked, looking at Wesley curiously.

Wesley pulled out an ID and held it briefly out in front of him. "Peck, A.T.F.," he said, before slipping the ID in his pocket and walking towards Spike. "Let me venture a guess. A simple G4 mainliner, double-coil, backwound, quick fuse with a drag under 20 feet?"

He looked over at the cop casually, and smiled. "That's our man. Tell me something else; have you checked him for booby traps on his person? I mean really checked, not just for weapons..."

As the cop stared at Wesley in confusion, Wesley grabbed Spike, spun him around so that he was leaning against the car, and began to apparently frisk him for weapons as he looked over at the cop. "Find Griggs, will you? I need to see him."

"Who?" the cop asked.

Wesley groaned. "Do it!" he yelled, grabbing the cop by the shoulder and shoving him away. As the cop vanished, he leaned over and whispered to Spike, "How fast can you put together a bomb with what I gave you?"

Spike smiled. "Done," he told his old acquaintance. "Thirty seconds from now all right?"

"It'll have to be," Wesley said, as he grabbed Spike's shoulder and began to walk away, Spike following him.

"So, is Peaches here?" Spike asked, looking over at Wesley.

"Just around the corner," Wesley said, smiling slightly; Spike and Angel rarely got along at first glance, but both of them always seemed to secretly respect each other, regardless of their differences.

"Bloody hell, I'll be glad to work with professionals again…" Spike muttered…

Just as the bomb exploded, taking the police car with it.

"Run!" Wesley yelled, as he and Spike ducked down and dived into a nearby alley, the policemen running about in surprise at the sudden burst of flame.

* * *

"So, is he interested?" Angel asked Wesley as they sat in Nabbit's bar, which he'd given them to use as their headquarters.

"He's interested," Wesley said, nodding in reply as he took a quick swig of his beer. "Anyone else we should be looking for?"

Angel sipped thoughtfully at his own pint, before putting it down and looked up at Wesley.

"Giles?" he asked inquiringly.

"He won't come," Wesley said, shaking his head. "He got out of the game about a year ago; he'd been diagnosed with an ulcer." He looked back at Angel. "Besides, we both know he might not be interested; he _did _seem pretty annoyed at your omissions in your past when talking to her…"

Angel sighed, and then smiled over at Wesley.

"You could still ask him," he said.

Wesley nodded thoughtfully. "I could ask," he agreed.

* * *

The next day, Wesley sat at the race track, looking casually at the slightly older man sitting a few rows down from him, his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose like they were about to fall off, staring at the ticket in his hand with a regretful expression as he looked at the dogs as they prepared to start.

Walking down towards the stand, Wesley stood there for a moment or two, just looking at the back of the man's head.

"I saw you back at the desk when I was getting my drink," Giles said, looking straight ahead as he spoke. "I saw you before you even got up this morning."

Wesley sat down beside his old friend and, swallowing the last chewed nut, smiled.

"Hello, Giles," he said, looking over at the man who'd helped him and Angel actually get their detective business started, providing them some much-needed money when pickings were slim.

"Whatever it is, I'm not interested," Giles said, turning back to look at the track.

Wesley smiled and looked at the track himself. "Which one are we rooting for?" he asked casually.

"Number four," Giles replied off-handedly. He looked over at Wesley. "Any reason you're staying here after what I told you?"

"Giles, you may not have had a good career, but you're the best there is," Wesley said to him. "You're in Cooperstown. What do you want?"

"Nothing," Giles said simply. "If Angel put you up to this- and I'm sure he did, knowing you- you can tell him that

"People like us don't change, Giles," Wesley said casually. "We stay sharp or we get sloppy, but we don't change." He looked over at Giles inquiringly at that. "And you know as well as I do that Angel regretted more than anybody else how things turned out."

"Just leave me alone," Giles grunted, turning back to look at the track.

After a few minutes, Wesley smiled and looked back at Giles. "Is that your hound way in the back there?"

"He breaks late," Giles said dismissively. "Everyone knows that."

As the dogs began to get closer and closer to the finish line, with Giles's dog still at the back, Giles sighed and looked back at Wesley.

"Are you going to at least treat me like an adult and tell me what the scam is?" he asked.

Wesley leaned over and whispered in Giles's ear, then got up and walked away.

As the dogs crossed the line- Giles's dog the last in the line- Giles sighed and stared at the ticket Wesley had just given him.

Then, as the dog crossed the finish line, he sighed and tossed it off to one side.

If he was going to get back in the game, he might as well get started in style.

* * *

"And Giles makes ten," Angel said, as he sat in a bar behind Wesley, who was slumped over the desk with a glass of whiskey in his hand. "Ten ought to do it, don't you think?"

Wesley shrugged slightly.

"You think we need one more?"

Wesley shrugged lightly again.

"OK; we'll get one more," Angel said. He looked down at Wesley. "Any ideas?"

Wesley sat back up and looked over at his friend.

"One," he said, his expression giving away nothing. "And you know who I mean."

Angel's eyes widened.

"Oh no…" he said, staring at Wesley in horror. "Tell me you're joking."

"Trust me, I'm not," Wesley said, looking back at his old friend. "Angel, you know as well as I do that he's good at what he does; you said yourself that he's remarkably proficient-"

"And _incredibly _pissed off at me!" Angel hissed at his friend. "Wesley, you _know_ that he's mad at me for leaving him; how am I meant to ask him for _help_? He wasn't exactly _happy _about me never telling him I existed, you know!"

Wesley just stared at Angel for a few moments, and then, finally, Angel sighed and sat back down.

"Fine," he sighed. "I'll ask him."

Wesley nodded. "Good, he said approvingly. He patted Angel reassuringly on the shoulder. "Look at it this way; maybe this will help you patch things up with him?"

"Practically sixteen years of ignoring him, and then we work together on this case?" Angel asked, looking back at Wesley. "I doubt Connor's going to be that easily swayed, Wes."


	6. The Estranged Son

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

**Imzadi: **Indeed she would be… Glad you liked the other characters, and, trust me, it is going to be REALLY difficult for Angel to convince Connor to help.

**Flaire Delacour with Faith:** It's not going to be Wesley convincing Connor, it's going to be Angel; I'll be taking the chance to explain his relationship with his son anyway.

**ka-mia2286:** There might be a relationship reunion, but since he's still suffering from HIV, it'd be a bit of an awkward one…

**Flight of Fancy: **Yeah, I see what you mean

**a2zmom: **Glad you liked it; I wasn't sure if the HIV thing would work, but I wanted to make it something real while sticking to continuity as much as I could, and that instantly sprung to mind.

**Loz: **You wanted it, and here it is.

Angel's Eleven

A few hours later, Angel was sitting in a train carriage in New York City, watching the young man standing in the carriage a few metres down from him.

Connor Angelus.

His son.

The child he'd given up when he was barely eighteen.

And a symbol of a painful past that he'd been trying to forget for so many years.

Angel sighed as he thought back to that dark period of his life.

* * *

He'd always been a rebellious child when he was growing up in Ireland- his little sister Kathy had been the only thing in his life that really kept him on the proverbial straight and narrow, and, after she'd died in a car accident when he was thirteen or fourteen, well…

He sighed.

Angel hated to admit it, but it was the only way to put it.

He'd turned into a right bastard. He'd spent a few days just wandering the streets, committing random minor crimes, and then he'd fallen in with a small group of wannabe criminals; mostly teenagers who had relatives in prison, and had thus decided to rebel against society as a whole. Angel hadn't been too interested in what happened to him at that point, and, after some debate, he'd joined up when he became infatuated with…

With _her_.

Darla, the adopted daughter of the group's leader; a career criminal

He'd known that wasn't her real name, of course- he'd heard enough hints around the hideout to know that much- but, at the time, and at barely fourteen, he hadn't cared; that just added to the air of mystery that drew him to her.

Even though they'd been too young, the two of them had spent several nights engaged in… somewhat adult activity, he should probably say. Never going all the way, of course- even they hadn't been stupid enough to risk things before they were fully developed- but there'd been more than the occasional accompanied orgasm; he was fairly sure they'd both sucked each other off at least once, if his memory served. They'd spent most of their seventeenth birthdays enjoying each other's company, revelling in the ability to do something that they could actually get _away _with…

And then, there'd been her.

It had been almost four years to the day since he'd joined the group. They'd gone on a bank raid- along with Spike, their newly-arrived demolition expert- and, although the raid had gone well, a twelve-year-old girl had died in their escape.

And, when Angel had seen the body of the girl lying there, he'd realised something.

He hadn't cared.

She'd been so alike his sister that they could have been _twins_… and he'd felt nothing.

Angel hadn't been able to cope after that. For the next few hours, he'd wandered the town, trying to figure out when he'd stopped caring, and then…

Then he'd found Darla waiting for him in his room.

He hadn't even cared what happened then; he'd jumped on her, and practically _raped _her, although she'd certainly proved eager to do it as things went on…

And then, when he'd woken up, he'd realised that he couldn't do this any more. He couldn't keep on going around committing crimes just because he felt hard-done by, just because he felt betrayed by the world. After all, some day, who was to say he wouldn't cause someone else to experience what had happened to him…?

After that, he'd spent a few months lounging around in a hotel, trying to deal with his troubled conscience while figuring out what to do with his life, until Darla had shown up, six months pregnant, scared, alone, and desperate for Angel's help.

Initially, Angel hadn't wanted to accept it, but slowly, he'd come to realise the truth; thanks to the baby, Darla _had _changed, her new responsibility for the life within her forcing her to grow up and take responsibility for her past actions. She'd genuinely wanted to become a better person, and, for the next three months, he'd tried to help her cope with their shared past, as they'd made plans for their future…

Then, as she was giving birth, the doctors told him that Darla had an ovarian cyst that would kill her shortly after the delivery. It would have been detected earlier, but Angel and Darla had both stayed away from the hospital until they absolutely _had _to go; the buildings didn't exactly hold pleasant memories for them

After their son had been born, Angel had asked to spend a few minutes alone with Darla and the baby…

A few minutes that remained burned into his memory like they'd been carved there with acid.

* * *

"_He's… he's beautiful…" Darla smiled, as she looked at the small form cradled in her arms, sucking thirstily at her breast. Neither of them were sure whether a baby was meant to be that thirsty so soon after being born, but he evidently wasn't one to pass up a drink…_

_And besides, Darla had wanted to do this one thing for her son._

"_Yeah… he is," Angel smiled, as he stroked his son's cheek with his finger. Then he looked over at Darla. "What do you want to call him?"_

_Darla was looking visibly weaker now, but she still found the strength to smile at the father of her baby. "I can't even quite remember _my _real name. You choose." _

_Angel stared at his son for a while, and eventually made his decision._

"_Connor."_

"_Connor," Darla said, smiling as her son finished sucking at her nipple and looked up at her with a remarkably attentive expression for his age. "I like it."_

_She sighed as she looked over at Angel. "Angel… he's the first- the _only­_- good thing we ever did. Make sure… make sure he knows… make sure he knows that I loved him… please…"_

_Angel took her hand in his and kissed the knuckles, staring into Darla's eyes pleadingly as he did so._

"_I will…" he said, a tear trickling down his cheek as he spoke. "But… but you'll be there for him as well…you've _got _to be…"_

"_Angel…" Darla said, pain in her eyes as she reached out and stroked his cheek. "Before I go… thank you… these past few months…"_

_She coughed briefly, and then looked back at him, a smile on her face although her entire body seemed to be wracked in pain. _

"_You've made me feel…" she gasped, coughed once more, and then, smiling at him, spoke once more._

"_You've made me feel _human_…"_

_Near tears now, Angel leaned forward and caught Darla's lips in a passionate kiss, knowing that, this time, it would have to last them both forever…_

_Then Darla's head fell back, and she was gone. _

* * *

Angel hadn't been able to quite cope with things after that. He'd spent a few months trying to raise Connor on his own, but eventually he'd been unable to cope and had given Connor to a couple he knew from the pre-gang days and left to wander the world aimlessly for a few years…

He stopped himself; Darla's death had been painful enough, but he didn't want to have to think about _her _as well…

Looking back at Connor, Angel nodded slightly in approval as Connor swiped a man's wallet as the train jolted slightly, taking advantage of the disturbance to make it look as though his fall forward was natural.

At the next stop, Connor got off the train, Angel getting off as well at the next door in their carriage. Pulling on a hat to conceal his face from view, he walked past Connor, swapping the wallet for a card as he did so, and then headed on to a nearby pub.

* * *

Half an hour later, Angel was sitting in the pub in question, nursing a pint of beer he'd purchased earlier, and staring at the door in front of him with a remarkable intensity; if his eyes had been a laser, he'd have destroyed the door by now.

Then it opened, and Connor entered, walking sullenly over to the table where his father was currently sitting.

The two of them looked at each other for a moment or two, and then Angel smiled awkwardly and indicated the seat in front of him.

"So… nice pull back there on the subway, son," he said, sheepishly; he knew that 'son' was a stupid thing to call Connor, but he couldn't think of anything better right now, and he had to get them started, right?

"Don't call me that," Connor said, looking back at Angel with the usual expression he had whenever he and Angel met; not hatred, but something relatively close to it. Angel more thought of it as _apathy_, to be honest; he'd eventually managed to convince Connor of his reasons for abandoning him, back when Connor was thirteen, but Connor still resented him for never even contacting him before Wolfram & Hart's intervention.

"_Anyway_…" Angel said, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ticket before he laid it down on the table. He looked at Connor. "You're in or you're out; right now."

"Family trip?" Connor asked, scoffing slightly as he looked at the ticket before looking back at Angel. "I'm not interested."

"It's not family; it's a business thing," Angel explained. "I'm organising an attack on Wolfram & Hart- you remember them, right?- and I need your skills in a professional capacity. You say no…"

He shrugged. "We'll find someone who isn't as good, things take longer, and you keep on just nicking wallets for a living."

Noting Connor looking inquiringly at the ticket, Angel smiled slightly as he noticed how like his mother Connor seemed in that moment…

After a moment's pause, Connor looked back up at Angel and nodded.

"All right; I'm in," he said.

Then his face hardened again. "But I'm not taking any preferential treatment from you; you won't win my forgiveness that easily."

Angel just nodded, silently relieved that he'd gotten that much out of Connor.

Now, they were eleven.


	7. The Plan of Attack

Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

Feedback: Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

**vaguely amused: **Well, she'll be coming in, yes, but you've got a _bit _of a wait before we get there…

**buff:** Thank you; hope I didn't keep you waiting too long

**loz: **Ask and you shall receive

**a2zmom: **Glad to hear it; I was worried about whether it would work, particularly with Darla's death sequence…

**Imzadi:** Well, the matter of who's been raising Connor doesn't really matter, in my opinion, but glad you're liking it anyway

**wackycavegirl:** Buffy's coming up, but if Xander DOES appear, it'll just be a minor role, I'm sorry to say

Angel's Eleven

The next night, the ten recruits were lounging around David Nabbit's poolside bar while Angel prepared things in the main lounge of the villa. Connor was sitting a bit of a distance away from the others, staring listlessly into the pool, while Spike talked a little with Giles and Wesley, Faith and Gwen quizzed Nabbit about what cars he had, and Oz and Willow just sat awkwardly beside each other, sipping at some drinks they'd ordered.

Eventually, Willow broke the silence.

"So… you're looking well," she said, nodding slightly at Oz.

"Thanks," he said, shrugging dismissively. "You too."

"Hi guys," Angel said, as he walked out of the room where he and Wesley had been setting things up since the others had arrived.

As they turned to look at him, Angel smiled again. "Good to see you all made it," he said, indicating Connor. "Not all of you know Connor; he's my son from back in Ireland."

A few people- notably the Molloys- were a bit surprised at that statement, but evidently enough people knew that it wasn't too much of a shock to anybody.

"OK then," Angel said, looking around at the others, "nobody's on the line here; what I'm about to propose is both highly lucrative and highly dangerous. If that doesn't sound like the cup of tea for anyone, enjoy your snacks, have a good ride home, and nobody will fault you."

He turned around and walked into the room, followed by most of the people outside. Only Connor remained, staring idly into the pool beside him.

Nabbit walked towards him, a shot of vodka still in his right hand.

"You're Angel's son?" he asked.

Connor nodded.

"You lived in Ireland?" Nabbit said.

Again, Connor nodded.

"It's nice over there," Nabbit said, smiling at the memory. "I spent a couple of holidays there myself. You liked it?"

Another nod from Connor.

"That's wonderful," Nabbit said. "Get in the goddamn house."

* * *

The lounge room was dominated by a large computer screen on one wall, currently showing a wire-frame schematic of the Strip, focusing on three casinos/hotels at one end of them. Angel, who was standing right beside the screen, tapped a button on the remote control he held, and the three casinos were lit up with a yellow light. 

"The 14000 block of Las Vegas Boulevard," he said, inrespone to their quizzical expressions."Otherwise known as the Bellagio, the Mirage, the M.G.M. Grand. Together, they're the three most profitable casinos in Las Vegas..."

He pushed another button, and the view changed to another picture, this time showing a complex substructure, featuring three tunnels, each apparently leading from a casino to a single freight-sized elevator shaft that descended into an enormous vault.

"Gentlemen- and ladies," Angel added, nodding atWillow, Faith and Gwen briefly before continuing, "the Bellagio vault. Located below the Strip, beneath two hundred feet of solid earth. It safeguards every dime that comes through each of the three casinos above it."

He paused for a moment, and then finished his sentence. "And we're going to rob it."

Connor shrugged dismissively. "Smash-and-grab job, huh?" he asked dismissively.

"_Slightly _more complicated than that, _actually_," Wesley said, looking over at Connor with an exasperated,annoyed expression on his face.

Ignoring the briefconfrontation between his son and his best friendas though it wasn't happening, Angel tapped another button on the remote, and the screen changed to show several pictures, apparently recordings of security camera footage.

"Courtesy of Charles Gunn, the new blackjack dealer at the Bellagio, we have security tapes of the vault from all three casinos," Angel explained, giving Gunn a brief thumbs-up before continuing, as another button focused on the screens showing three corridors.

"OK, bad news first," Angel said, as he looked around at the gang. "This place houses a security system which rivals most nuclear missile silos. First: we have to get within the casino cages-"

"Here, here, and here," Wesley said, indicating them on the display, which had once again gone back to the vault schematic.

"Which, as anyone knows, takes more than a smile," Angel finished. "Next, through these doors, each of which requires a different six-digit code changed every twelve hours. Past those lies the elevator- and this is where it gets tricky," he added, enjoying the incredulous expressions on the face of most of the other group members at that statement.

"The elevator won't move without authorized fingerprint identifications-"

"Which I'm guessing we can't fake," Willow put in.

Angel nodded at her and continued; "-and vocal confirmations from both the security center within the Bellagio and the vault below-"

"Which we won't get, right?" Faith asked.

"Furthermore," Angel added nodding briefly in approval at Faith as he did so, "the elevator shaft is rigged with motion detectors-"

"Meaning," Wesley explained, "that if we manually overrode the lift, the shaft's exit will lock down automatically and we'll be trapped- and before you ask, Oz," he said, looking over at the trapeeze artist, "the security net's too fine for even you to slip in; any open spaces in a straight line aren't consistently large enough to let in anything that isn't the size of a guinea pig at best."

"But," Angel said, smiling at everyone's suddenly worried expressions, "once we've gotten down the shaft, though, then it's a walk in the park."

Then his smile faded. "Just three more guards with Uzis and predilections toward not being robbed, and the most elaborate vault door conceived by man. Oh, and the vault itself, once locked down, is covered with motion detectors that will go off as soon as anyone touches the floor, and a state-of-the-art temperature sensor that would be triggered by so much as a rise in temperature by a single degree. Think the room Tom Cruise penetrated in _Mission: Impossible _without the vent in the roof, and you're pretty much there."

He looked around quizzically at the group. "Any questions?"

"Tunneling?" Oz asked, looking over at Wesley.

Wesley shook his head. "No, that wouldn't work; they have Richter scales monitoring the ground for one hundred yards in every direction. If so much as a _groundhog_ tried to nest there, they'd know about it."

"Anyone else?" Angel asked.

* * *

Spike raised his hand. 

"You said something about _good _news, right?" he asked his old friend. "Or was the good news just that you've got us a decent lawyer when we fuck up and get caught?"

"No, Spike, it's not, and we're not _going _to mess up, anyway," Angel said, smiling slightly at their demolitions expert before turning back to the others. "The Nevada Gaming Commission stipulates that a casino _must_ hold in reserve enough cash to cover every chip at play on its floor. As I mentioned, this vault services each of the three casinos above it, meaning that, during the week, by _law_, it must hold anywhere from sixty to seventy million dollars in cash and coin. On a weekend, between eighty and ninety million. On a fight night, like the one two weeks from tonight, the night we're going to rob it…"

He looked around at everyone else to make sure they got the point he was about to make. "At least a hundred and fifty million, without breaking a sweat."

Angel gazed around the room. "Now, there's eleven of us," he said to them all. "Each with an equal share. You do the math."

Everyone's eyes widened as they went over the figure in their heads. Everyone was easily able to work out that they were talking between ten to fifteen million each, but Wesley, Giles and Nabbit- whose minds treated numbers as merely a second language- had already worked out the exact figure; $13 636 363. 63.

Giles coughed politely to attract attention.

"I have a question," he said, looking at Angel inquiringly.

"Yes?" Angel asked, looking at the man who'd come close to becoming his potential stepfather-in-law, before the woman he'd have married had died of a brain tumor…

_Stop that_! he told himself, as he turned his attention back to Giles.

"Assuming we _do_get into the cage," Giles said, lookingcritically at the younger man,"and through the security doors we can't access, and down the elevator we can't move, and past the guards with guns, and into the vault we can't open...

"Without being seen by the cameras around the vault itself," Wesley added.

Angel smiled casually as everyone looked at him in astonishment. "Oh, right; sorry, I forgot to mention that."

"Yes, well…" Giles said, looking at Angel again. "Even assumingwe can do all that. We're just supposed to walk out of there withat leasta hundred and fifty million dollars- in _cash_- on us... without getting stopped?

Everyone looked over at Angel at that, waiting his answer. Angel put the remote he'd been using down in front of the screen, and smiled at Giles.

"Pretty much, yeah," he said.

Giles nodded.

"Oh," he said simply.

Maybe he should have thought more about this…

Angel looked around the room. "OK, guys; here's the plan," he said.


	8. The Early Stages

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

"First task; reconnaissance," Angel said, looking over at Gunn in particular as he spoke. "I want to know everything that's going on in all three casinos. From the rotation of the dealers to the path of every cash cart, no fact is too minor; the slightest flaw on the night, and we'll be in trouble."

Gunn nodded. "Already been working on it; I've got a basic idea of the casino's regular schedules already," he assured his friend. "Anything else you'll be needing to find out about?"

"Yeah," Angel said, nodding at Gunn. "I want to know everything about every guard, every watcher, anyone with a security pass that we might be able to appropriate. I want to know where they're from, what their nicknames are… Hell, I want to know whether they take sugar or milk in their coffee..."

Gunn nodded again. "On it; I've picked up some titbits so far, but I'll see what else I can gather," he assured his old friend.

"Good," Angel said, before glancing over at Faith and Gwen "Until we get to the driving stage of the mission, you two are going to be responsible for getting to know the casinos. They were built as labyrinths to keep people in; I want you guys to know the quick routes out. Got that?"

Faith raised a hand, but Wesley grabbed it and dragged the hand back down to her chair.

"_No_, Faith, you _cannot _take time out to have some fun at the blackjack or roulette tables," he said harshly to the young woman as he lowered her hand. "This is business; you'll have time for pleasure later."

Faith looked over at Angel with a pleading expression, but the former detective merely shrugged. "Sorry, Faith; those are the breaks," he said. "Trust me, you'll have the chance to have fun once all this is over."

He looked over at Spike, who was drumming his fingers on the table near his chair. "Second task: power. On the night of the fight, we're gonna throw the switch on sin city. Spike, it's your show."

Spike raised an eyebrow at his old friend/ rival. "You want broke, blind, or bedlam?" he asked inquiringly.

"How does all three sound?" Angel asked.

Spike shrugged. "Tricky, but possible; just give me a little time to scope out the joint," he said. "I'll probably need to set them underground; no point in tipping anyone off ahead of schedule.

Angel nodded in approval; knowing Spike, in two weeks, he could set up a means of shutting down the power that nobody else could have pulled off in two months.

"Third task; surveillance," he said, nodding briefly at Gunn, who pulled a laptop out of a leather case he'd had beside him for the session and handed it to Willow.

"Um… what's this?" Willow asked, looking up at Angel curiously.

"That laptop contains all information that Gunn could safely download about the casino's computerised security systems with his level of access," Angel said, as Willow opened the laptop and booted up the power. "Casino security has an eye and ear on everything, so we'll want an eye and ear on them. We figured this would be the best way for you to get an idea of what we'll have to deal with."

As the images came up on the screen, Willow scanned the various assorted blueprints and circuit diagrams for a few moments before looking back at Angel.

"Well, it's not the least accessible system I've seen, but it's close," she told them. "I don't suppose they have a closed-circuit feed I could tap into?"

Angel glanced over at Gunn, who shook his head.

Willow sighed. "Then this is definitely a black bag job," she said, before looking back at Gunn. "Do they employ an in-house technician?"

"Two," Gunn said, raising the same number of fingers as he spoke. Then he smiled and glanced over at Faith and Gwen. "And one of them is lonely with a taste for brunettes."

Faith smiled. "I'm in," she said.

Gwen didn't try and interrupt; the two sisters may constantly dress like both of them would shag anything male that moved, but some childhood trauma had left Gwen terribly afraid of sex. Nobody knew precisely what it had been; Faith's own opinion was that one of their least liked babysitters had sexually abused her at some point when she'd been out with her parents. Gwen, however, remained close-mouthed on the topic, and nobody had the nerve to broach an evidently painful subject that didn't really have any relevance to anything going on in their lives at the present.

* * *

A few hours later, Faith, dressed- if 'dressed' was the word- in a near-transparent nurse's outfit, with only a couple of red crosses in strategic places to act as any kind of modesty barrier, danced provocatively above one of the technicians from the casino. She'd managed to convince one of the strippers to take the night off so she could visit her family, and had 'agreed' to cover the shift in her place on condition that she received half the money from the night.

She smiled slightly as she leaned over, giving the man a good eyeful of her cleavage, and then gently slid his keycard out of his shirt pocket; the guy had drunk so much already that he probably wouldn't notice for a while.

"I'll be right back, honey," she said, giving him a brief wink as she stood up. "Don't move a muscle."

"Depends on the muscle," the tech said, slurring his words slightly.

Faith pouted at him flirtingly, trying to make it look as though she _wasn't _just pitying him for his lack of an intellect, and then walked off towards the door, pausing to grab a coat before she stepped out the door.

Outside the strip club, Wesley was standing patiently beside his car, several balloons tied to the car in preparation for the next stage of the plan.

He took the keycard from Faith and smiled.

"Thank you, Faith," he said, nodding at her. "I'll get this back to you in an hour; do you think you can keep our subject occupied for that long?"

"Hey; I'm getting _paid_ for this part of the job, remember?" Faith smiled at him. "I'll last."

Wesley nodded at that comment; he'd already thought to himself that Faith would enjoy this job. After all, the chance to have a man goggle at her _and _get paid for it? It would be like paying _him_ to read a collection of first editions.

* * *

The next morning, Oz was walking through the casino, dressed in a technician's uniform. Willow had wanted to do this part of the job herself, but Angel had pointed out that Oz was a lot less conspicuous than she was; people were more likely to notice an attractive red-headed woman than they were likely to notice a slightly short, relatively average-looking man. Willow had drawn Oz out some sketches to make sure he knew what to do when he reached his destination, but they had mostly been done just to ensure that she felt better; Oz knew computers almost as well as she did, and wouldn't have had many problems in identifying what needed to be done to provide Willow with access to the mainframe.

Glancing over, Oz was relieved to see that Faith and Gwen were already moving into their positions for their stage of this operation; Gwen was posing as a delivery girl, currently dropping off a bunch of balloons, while Faith was just a typical tourist, dressed in clothing that was less revealing then her normal outfits while still appearing sexy. Right on cue, the two of them bumped into each other.

"Hey, watch it, girl!" Faith called out, shoving Gwen back slightly, apparently 'making' Gwen let go of her balloons, which drifted up to obscure the camera above them.

"Who're you calling girl, pal?" Gwen retorted.

"Who're you calling pal, friend?" Faith snapped back.

"Who're you calling friend, _jackass_!" Gwen yelled back.

"You don't call _me _a jack-" Faith began.

"Guess what?" Gwen interrupted, smiling and poking her sister sharply once in the chest. "I just did."

* * *

While this 'enlightening' exchange of conversation was going on, Oz had kept his eye on the door near the slot machines that led to the security room. When the door opened and a tall man in a business suit stepped out, the door guards following with him, Oz seized his chance and walked up to the door, slid his keycard through the reader, and entered the corridor on the other side, quickly closing the door behind him to make sure that none of the staff noticed him and wondered why he'd waited until then to enter.

Consulting the basic map that Gunn had drawn on his hand, Oz turned right, then left, opened the door he found there, and stepped into a room filled with all kinds of cables and wires.

He smiled briefly as his eyes scanned the room. He may have become more inclined towards acrobatics in the last few years, but he still enjoyed a chance to hack, even if he was nowhere near as good as Willow was now, and this was one of the major challenges of all hackers. This kind of system was hardly the Mount Everest of hacks, but it was still pretty difficult, and Oz was looking forward to getting his hands on it.

True, he'd have some help while he was doing it, but that was besides the point, right?

* * *

Outside, the argument between the two Molloys was reaching all-new levels, despite the sentry's attempts to calm them down.

"You hear about this new medical discovery they made?" Gwen asked sarcastically. "It's called a 'sense of direction.' Apparently we're all supposed to have one...

"Yeah yeah yeah, _whatever_, balloon girl…" Faith retorted.

"Hey, leave that out of this!" Gwen yelled, shoving her sister back as she glared at her. "This is just a temp, you know; I wouldn't even _be _here if some idiot hadn't forced my office to shut for renovation! I needed money fast, and this was the best thing on offer!"

"What, you couldn't try hooking?" Faith retorted harshly.

"Ladies…" the guard said, although, right now, neither Faith or Gwen looked anything _like _a lady. Quite frankly, he'd probably have had better luck arguing with the wall; Faith and Gwen just ignored him and continued trading insults, as several people in the casino began to gather around to watch this free 'entertainment'.

* * *

Back in their hotel room, staring at Willow as she tapped diligently at the keys on her laptop, Angel and Wesley couldn't help but smile as an image of the corridor to the security centre of the Bellagio Casino came up in front of them.

Willow smiled as she looked back at the two men; evidently, she'd been just as concerned about Oz as they were, although she, admittedly, had a more _personal _interest…

Angel sighed as he stared at the screen.

"Why do they _always _paint hallways that colour?" he asked rhetorically.

"They say taupe's very soothing," Willow chimed in, and Angel couldn't help but smile slightly; even after five years, Willow still retained her mountain of random trivia and general knowledge about the world.

As other cameras came up, Angel smiled as Oz stepped out of the door, allowing Faith and Gwen to break up their 'argument' and go their separate ways. Angel still wasn't entirely sure what they'd do with Gwen's balloons when they got up here, but that didn't matter.

They finally had their in to the casino's security system.

"Willow," he said, looking over at the hacker, "start taking down details about the vault; we'll need it for the fifth task."

"Which is?" Wesley asked, looking at his old friend inquiringly.

"Construction," Angel explained. "We'll need to build an exact working replica of the Bellagio vault; the walls, the shelves, the doors, even the floor has to be exactly like the real thing."

"We need it for practice?" Willow asked. "You know, train the people involved in the actual break-in to focus when the time comes for the real thing?"

Angel shrugged. "Sort of," he said. He didn't want to make them too nervous; there was no point in raising too many concerns at such an early stage. When the time was right, he'd be sure to let them know…

But, as things currently stood, he wasn't prepared to take any chances that something would go wrong because of nerves.


	9. The Old Flame

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

The next morning, all eleven of the group were in one of Nabbit's old warehouses, working diligently at the parts that the reclusive millionaire had managed to purchase for them.

"How the hell'd you get all this stuff together without arousing suspicion?" Gunn asked, looking over at Nabbit as the two of them picked up a shelving unit and hauled it onto its feet.

"Basically just told the truth," Nabbit said dismissively. "Said that I was seeing about building myself a vault for some stuff; any similarities to the casino get noticed by anyone, they'll probably just assume I'm a nostalgic sad sack who can't let go of the past-"

"Which is technically true; you're just being productive about it," Spike put in casually.

Over in a corner of the room, near a conveyor belt stacked with fake casino chips, Angel and Oz exchanged glances and rolled their eyes at Spike's tactlessness; he'd been a pain when he was trying to kill them, and he was an ever _bigger _pain after his reformation. If it hadn't been for all the effort that their respective groups had put into helping Spike get his life back on track, Angel would have just kicked the guy out onto the street and let him cope with the heroin addiction on his own…

_But I couldn't do it, could I?_ Angel mused to himself. A pain in the neck Spike may have been, but Angel knew, better than most, that if it hadn't been for the death of his mother, Spike might never have turned out like he did. With her gone, he had lost the only person who stopped him venting his frustration and rage on everyone who'd mocked and ridiculed him in his life. Then he'd met Drusilla, who'd helped him channel the frustration at something, and…

Well, things just went downhill from there.

Angel was just grateful that Spike's better nature had led to him helping them that time Dawn was kidnapped by that mad doctor with delusions of godhood(What had her name been again? Oh yeah… _Glory_…).

After that, Dawn had managed to appeal to Spike's humanity and make him reject Drusilla; currently, Angel's original protégé hadn't been seen for around eight years (Counting the time spent in prison), a fact of which Angel was inexpressibly grateful. Spike may have been annoying, but, over the years prior to Angel's imprisonment, he'd certainly proven to be a valuable ally…

"So, what's next?" Wesley asked, breaking into Angel's train of thought. Shaking his head, Angel glanced over at his old friend, and saw his sun standing beside Wesley, looking at him inquiringly.

"Right…" Angel said, looking over at Connor. "Fifth task; intelligence. We'll need the security codes for the doors, Connor, and only one guy has all three of them."

"Abrams?" Connor asked, raising an eyebrow.

Angel nodded. "Learn to love his shadow." He was about to turn back to the rest of the group and continue talking, but Connor grabbed his arm and glared at his father.

"That's it?" he asked, frustration evident in his voice. "All I have to do is _watch _him? You've got Gwen and Faith doing reconnaissance already!"

Angel sighed as he looked back at Connor. "I know that," he said, trying to keep his tone of voice calm and civil, "but when it comes to sneakily following a known womaniser like Abrams, a man who's good at staying unnoticed is far easier than a highly attractive woman, no matter _how _stealthy she is normally."

Noticing that Connor was still fuming, Angel reached out and placed a comforting hand on his son's arm.

"It's just temporary, Connor," he assure the young man. "You've got to learn to walk before you can crawl."

"Reverse that," Wesley said to Connor as the young man's face assumed an aspect of confusion, Angel already occupied with talking to Gunn, Faith and Gwen.

"Sixth task; transport," he began.

* * *

An hour later, the three of them were at a used car lot, Gunn talking with the manager while Faith and Gwen 'tested' the suspension of the vehicles they'd set their eyes on. So far, things weren't going well; Gunn knew that he'd matured a lot since those days, but he was coming _this _close to just beating the lot owner senseless until he agreed to give them the cars for free…

"I'm sorry," the lot owner said in a nearly-regretful tone as he spoke to Gunn, "but eighteen-five each is the best offer I can make you."

"Oh, I understand perfectly," Gunn said, trying to keep up his chosen image as a slightly dandified character without being flamboyantly homosexual. "They _are_ beautiful vans. Well, I thank you for your time, Mister...?" he asked, holding out a hand thoughtfully; he knew the man's name, of course, but he'd just had an idea

"Denham," the man said, holding out his hand. "Billy Tim Denham."

"Yes, Denham, like a jean!" Gunn said, smiling as he took Denham's hand. The man chuckled briefly at Gunn's 'joke', but then stopped when Gunn raised his hands to his face.

"You know," Gunn said, looking up at Denham, "you have lovely hands- do you moisturize?"

Denham blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry?" he asked, staring at Gunn.

Gunn, however, pretended not to notice, and just kept on looking at the lot owner's hand. All he had to do now was keep holding Denham's hand, until the guy had no choice but to lower his price just to get Gunn out of his office.

"I swear by it- moisturizer, I mean," Gunn explained, smiling up at the man. "I try all sorts of lotions. I went through a fragrance-free period last year, but now I'm liking this new brand fortified with rose hip. My sister, you know," he added, trying not to think too much about his _real _sister Alonna, killed by a gang of killers on PCP back when he first met Angel, "she uses the aloe vera with the sun screen built in...

Denham, after numerous 'subtle' attempts to get his hand back had failed, nodded politely at Gunn.

"Uh-huh…" he said, nodding in a panicked manner as he looked at the ex-convict. "You said you'd be willing to pay in cash?"

"I did," Gunn said briefly, before continuing to talk as though Denham had never spoken. "You know: they say cinnamon is wonderful for your pores. Read that on the internet. And that ideally you should be wearing gloves to bed, but I find that would interfere with my social agenda. Problem is: I get a reaction to camphor so I can't use traditional remedies..."

Gunn noticed to his relief that Denham was already starting to sweat nervously; he was starting to worry that he was overdoing it.

"If you could pay cash," Denham said, trying not to focus on Gunn's hands, "I could probably drop the price a little. To, say, seventeen..."

Gunn squeezed slightly.

"Sixteen each?" he asked, speaking at a slightly faster pace than he honestly needed to.

"That would be _lovely_," Gunn said with a big smile as he released Denham's hand. "Thank you."

* * *

At the same time, Angel and Nabbit were sitting in a clothes shop, watching as Giles studied his reflection in a mirror. Contrary to his earlier casual attire, Giles was now dressed in an elaborate suit, a shiny grey in colour, and silver-rimmed glasses with black shoes.

"Nice material…" he said thoughtfully, studying the jacket.

"It's Armani, Mr Giles," Nabbit said to the ex-librarian from where he sat. "I thought it suited the image we'll be wanting to create."

"It's very nice…" Giles mused, trying to appear casual and failing miserably. It was evident to both of the other men that he was scared, right down to his Florsheims. Nodding over to the tailor who'd been fitting them for some privacy, Angel walked over to stand beside Giles as they looked into the mirror.

"You sure you're ready to do this Rupert?" Angel asked casually.

Giles briefly turned away, as though trying to compose himself, and when he faced Angel again, his entire aspect had changed, his features now resembling something that had been carved in stone, and the glare in his eyes as cold as icicles.

"If you ever question me again, _Liam_," Giles informed his old friend harshly, "you won't wake up the following morning."

Angel just smiled casually, patted his nearly-step-father-in-law, and turned around to look back at Nabbit.

"He's ready," he said simply. He jerked a finger towards the cashier and Nabbit got out his wallet, leaving Giles to practice his new role into a mirror.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Lyman Zerga..."

He coughed once and then tried again, this time a little deeper and with a slight accent; Angel thought it might be Swiss.

"My name is Lyman Zerga..."

* * *

An hour or so later, Giles was driving to the door of the Bellagio hotel, in a limousine that Nabbit had loaned to them for the purpose, a smaller car behind him. Faith was driving, but to avoid attracting attention she had tied all her hair up and hidden it under the chauffer's cap she was wearing, dark glasses and a moustache concealing the beauty of her features as a tight shirt did its best to squash her breasts down to a degree that wouldn't attract attention. Faith had initially complained about the outfit, but none of the group could ignore Angel's reasoning; they wanted _Zerga _to be the one to attract Abrams' attention, rather than his attractive staff.

As Faith pulled up outside the main door, she looked back at Giles, who was taking a last count of the money Nabbit had given him for this part of the task- six hundred thousand dollars- and smiled casually at him.

"We've arrived, Mr Zerga," she said, remembering to use a deeper voice than normal. "Good luck."

Giles, still in character, looked up accusingly at Faith.

"Luck is for losers," he said, his false accent prominent.

Getting out, he was joined by the inhabitants of the rear two cars- in this case, Oz and Spike, dressed in black business suits and dark glasses in the style of bodyguards, their hair bleached black to add to their stereotypical image. Purposefully walking up to the main entrance, the two men following him, Giles went through the doors and approached the VIP concierge.

"Ah, good afternoon, sir," the concierge said, looking up at the new arrival. "How can I be of service?"

Giles nodded. "My name is Lyman Zerga," he explained, staring at the concierge critically, his expression neutral. "I would like a suite."

The concierge looked at him inquiringly. "Do you have a reservation with us?"

Giles glared back at the man. "I don't make reservations."

A longer glance at Lyman's bodyguards confirmed for the concierge that this was, indeed, not a man who made reservations. Turning back to his computer, he began to check the list of available rooms.

* * *

A couple of days later, Wesley walked into the casino and joined Connor at a position outside the door. The young man was dressed in a long brown jacket and a dark blue shirt and jeans, leaning against the wall as he stared casually at the door.

"OK then," Wesley said, as he leant on the wall alongside the younger man. "Tell me about Benedict."

Connor sighed in an exaggerated manner as he looked over at his father's friend.

"The guy is a machine," he explained. "He arrives at the Bellagio every day at two p.m. Same Town Car, same driver. Remembers every valet's name on the way in, and doesn't miss an opportunity to make eye contact with anyone. Not bad for a guy worth three-quarters of a billion, really."

He indicated a set of steps some distance from the main door, just visible from their current position. "Offices are upstairs. He works hard, hits the lobby floor at seven on the nose; checks over everything from a balcony outside the office.

Connor swallowed slightly as he looked over at Wesley. "Call me paranoid, but he always reminds me of an eagle looking at its prey…"

Wesley nodded. "Given his reputation, that is understandable," he said, before turning back to the door. What then?"

"He spends three minutes on the floor with his casino manager," Connor explained.

"What does he talk to the manager about?" Wesley asked.

Connor shrugged dismissively. "It's all business, really" he explained. "Abrams likes to know what's going on in his casinos- the incident he doesn't know about or handle personally is the one nobody told him about- then he spends a few minutes gladhanding the high rollers. He's fluent in Spanish, German and Italian, and he's taking Japanese lessons- getting pretty good at it, by all accounts. He's out by seven-thirty, when an assistant hands him a black portfolio, containing the day's take and new security codes. Then he heads to the restaurant."

Wesley glanced at his watch and stared critically at the door. According to Connor, Abrams's schedule should have him leaving the casino now, but it was seven-thirty now and there was no sign of him…

"Give him another ten seconds," Connor said casually, as Abrams came around the corner, carrying his black portfolio and dressed in a sharp dark blue business suit.

As he walked by them, Connor smiled slightly and looked over at Wesley. "As I said: a machine."

Wesley indicated the target. "And that portfolio contains the codes to all the cage doors?

Connor nodded. "Two minutes after they've been changed, he's got 'em in hand," he said. He paused for a moment, and then glanced over at Wesley. "Is Angel suicidal?"

"What?" Wesley asked, looking at Connor in confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Connor jerked his thumb after Abrams, who was already heading for his restaurant. "This guy's as smart and ruthless as they come. They caught a guy here recently who was just cheating at _blackjack_, and Abrams not only sent him up for ten years, he had the bank seize the guy's home and bankrupted-"

"His brother-in-law's tractor dealership, I heard," Wesley said dismissively. "I _am_ aware of Abram's tendency to take everything from the people who wrong him, thank you very much."

He glanced over at Connor inquiringly. "Are you scared?"

Connor looked back at him. "You suicidal?" he asked.

"Only in the morning," Wesley said, shrugging dismissively. Noting Connor's suddenly eager expression, he raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Now what?"

Connor smiled. "Now comes the girl... if she comes in after he does, that means they're in a snit."

Wesley's eyes nearly widened in surprise. Why hadn't Angel mentioned that Abrams was seeing anyone…?

"Where's she come from?" he asked.

Connor smiled. "The museum downstairs; she's the curator there," he explained, before looking up at the stairs. "Wait... here she is," he said, chuckling as he looked over at Wesley. "Trust me; even _you'll_ like this."

An elegant woman with long blonde hair, just a few inches over five feet high, appeared at the stop of the stairs. Elegantly dressed in a red jacket and knee-length skirt, she walked down the stairs and out of the door, apparently not even noticing the two men watching her.

"I don't know if we can use her yet," Connor added, looking back at Wesley. "I haven't even heard her name."

"Buffy," Wesley stated simply.

"What?" Connor asked, looking over at Wesley in confusion.

"Her name is Buffy," Wesley repeated, as he turned to look at Connor. "And she once came close to being your stepmother."


	10. Looking to the Past, Plans of the Future

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

AN: This chapter primarily focuses on the pasts of Buffy, Angel, and their associates in this timeline. I've based it slightly on the shows, but details are changed to make it more of a thriller series than a supernatural series; I just hope you all like the result

Angel's Eleven

As Wesley and Connor drove back to the warehouse where their group were constructing the duplicate vault, Wesley's mind was already in overdrive as he thought back over what he remembered of Angel and Buffy's 'relationship'.

They'd first met around nine years after Angel gave Connor up for adoption, when Angel was twenty-six and Buffy around a decade younger. Seeking a reason for his life after breaking away from the gang, Angel had eventually decided to keep an eye on their activities and intervene if things ever went too far; it had taken him a few years to re-trace them, but he'd eventually found them in Buffy's home town of Sunnydale, attempting to blow up the Bronze- the town's local youth disco.

Needing a contact from inside the school to help him, he'd checked over the school records for a likely candidate, and had eventually found Buffy. A quick bit of independent investigation into her background had revealed that she had been expelled from her last school in Los Angeles for burning down the gym. What wasn't made public, however, was that in the process she had, practically single-handedly, taken out a gang of teen killers and rapists who had mounted an attack on the gym in the middle of the school dance, and had been tormenting the city for the last few weeks. Most of the students had managed to evacuate, but it had been Buffy who'd sealed the gym off after setting the wooden tables on fire by dousing them with alcohol and stealing a friend's cigarette lighter.

However, even though Buffy had saved several innocent lives with her actions, the school officials were unwilling to admit to the presence of the gang for fear of being blamed for their presence. Records had been doctored to make it appear as though a fight had broken out and Buffy had burned down the gym while drunk, and she was expelled. Her parents had divorced shortly afterwards, her father staying in L.A. while Buffy, her mother, and her younger sister Dawn went to Sunnydale, where Joyce Summers had found a job in charge of an art gallery.

Then Buffy had met Angel, and, well…

Wesley chuckled slightly as he drove.

The two of them, according to all sources, had fallen in love straight away. It had taken the two of them a while to admit it, of course, although most of it came from Angel's side; Buffy just wasn't sure why an older man like Angel would be interested in her, while Angel felt he couldn't be with Buffy after everything he'd done in his life. After a confrontation with Angel's old gang leader- an individual who merely called himself 'the Master'-, in which Angel's past had been revealed, Buffy had assured Angel that she didn't care about what he'd _been_, only what he _was_, and the two had dated for nearly three years, investigating various crimes that took place around Sunnydale that the official police either weren't investigating or were being prevented from looking into.

The two young lovers had often been joined in their investigations by Willow and Oz (Then a shy genius and a solitude-seeking guitarist respectively). Another member of their amateur deductive team was Willow's childhood friend Xander, who had often protested about Buffy and Angel's relationship because of the age gap, but had gradually come to accept it. They often turned to Rupert Giles- the school librarian and an old acquaintance of Buffy's mother- for any extra information that was required in their investigations; he was particularly helpful in their dealings with Ethan Rayne, an old college acquaintance of Giles with a bizarre fixation with attempting to summon demons via human sacrifices. They also had a few run-ins with Spike and Drusilla, Spike now nursing a heroin addiction that made him nearly as mad as Drusilla, but the more-than-slightly debilitated mental state of the two convicts made them little real danger to the group.

Then, after Buffy's graduation ceremony, Angel had broken up with her, feeling concerned about his continued presence in Buffy's life after a near-death battle with Sunnydale's insane mayor had left Buffy with a broken arm _and _leg. His hope was that, with him gone, the gang-related activity in Sunnydale would die down, as the 'Master' had primarily moved there to try and tempt Angel back into the group, and Buffy and her friends

After the break-up, Angel had moved to Los Angeles, where he had met a man called Francis Doyle, a gambler with underworld contacts and a desire to do good, and the two of them had set up a detective agency, primarily to deal with crimes organised by the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart.

Cordelia- a girl from Sunnydale who had occasionally helped them in their investigations after she was nearly killed by a stalker- and Wesley himself had joined them shortly afterwards; Wesley, an old college friend of Giles', had been recommended to Angel by Giles for general knowledge after Wolfram & Hart began to include more advanced scientific weapons in their 'arsenal'. After about a year in the big city, the four of them had met Charles Gunn, a rogue vigilante on L.A.'s streets, and had helped give him a purpose after most of his gang- including his sister Alonna- had been killed by a gang that was so high on PCP that Wesley doubted they would have noticed a missing arm.

Meanwhile, back in Sunnydale, Buffy and the gang had continued their private investigations, using some money Xander and Willow had acquired from their parents to set up the business as an actual agency, mainly run by Giles, with Anya, Xander's money-obsessed new girlfriend, acting as the secretary while the others were at college. It was at about this time that Spike had returned to Sunnydale on his own, varying between rage at the world and general lethargy and depression depending on how much heroin he'd taken recently, and Oz had departed Sunnydale after his HIV experience.

Buffy, attempting to get over Angel, had begun to date her psych class teaching assistant- an Iowan farm boy called Riley Finn- but the relationship had ended badly for both of them, particularly after Riley was revealed to be a new 'urban vigilante' on Sunnydale's streets, who'd been killing criminals rather than merely taking them in for questioning. Buffy had tried to help curb his violent tendencies for a time, hoping that he could 'reform' like Angel had, but he had eventually been forcibly sent to a private clinic after he nearly overdosed on steroids on several occasions.

It was at around this point that Angel had called Buffy to find out how things were, the group in a state of mourning after Doyle had sacrificed himself to save several Koreans that Wolfram & Hart had smuggled into America to use as slave labour. When Angel and his team had managed to provide the Koreans with papers that would allow them to legally live in Europe, Wolfram & Hart had planted a bomb on the ship that the agency had managed to hire, intending for it to destroy the ship's fuel supply and cause it to explode, but Doyle had found the bomb and managed to move it to another part of the ship, although it had gone off in his arms before he could throw it over the side or figure out a way to disarm it.

While talking, Buffy and Angel had realised how much they still missed each other, and, after learning that Sunnydale was still a haven for criminals, had begun to see each other again, each one taking turns to visit the other at the weekends. Their willingness to join forces at this time had proven particularly helpful, as their two groups were each forced into dangerous situations. Angel and his friends found themselves dealing with the Raiden sisters, then a skilled pair of cat burglars, while Buffy's team clashed with an insane doctor known only as 'Glory' who believed that she needed to sacrifice Buffy's sister Dawn to achieve godhood. With some help from Spike (Who had eventually kicked his heroin habit with some help from Xander and Anya), Glory had been defeated after a struggle at an old construction site, although Buffy's injuries had left her in a coma for nearly three months. The Raiden sisters, on the other hand, had been far more difficult and determined- Wesley's left arm had never been the same after they broke it while torturing him for information- but, after some unofficial counselling from Angel, they had learned to take responsibility for their actions and sided with their group. Faith and Buffy in particular became as close as sisters, although Gwen was still a bit distant due to her dislike of being touched.

Then, almost a year after Buffy and Angel got back together, Wolfram & Hart played their cards too well. Not only did their latest plot result in Cordelia dying of a virus that had been genetically engineered by the lawyers themselves, but then, trying to make Angel lose the will to fight, they had given Buffy access to certain documents that revealed Connor's existence, as well as sending identical papers to Connor. Outraged at the secrets he'd kept from her, Buffy broke up with him, and Connor, having persuaded his parents to take him over to America, had a long argument with Angel. The exact details of what was said that night were unknown to all but Angel and Connor, but it was evident that things hadn't gone too well; Connor had left that night yelling at Angel to never speak to him again.

Unfortunately for Wolfram & Hart, their plan hadn't worked out as well as it could have done. Rather than give up, Angel just became more determined to take them down, taking a mass of explosives from a contact and breaking into the main office to plant them while everyone was home for the night. The resulting explosion had caused the entire building to collapse in on itself, destroying all records of Wolfram & Hart's clients along with most of their technological advances.

Unfortunately, they were still skilled lawyers.

Having tracked Angel down, they took him to court on the charge of destruction of property. The evidence against him was strong, but the vast majority of it was confirmed by Wesley and Willow, along with an… acquaintance… of Wesley's called Winifred Burkle, to be faked. What evidence was left was still enough to get him locked up, but only for around eight years, with parole available in five with good behaviour; if the evidence had all been authentic, Angel could have received either a life sentence or death. After saying his goodbyes to his various groups, Angel had been taken away to prison, and the others had all gone their separate ways. Wesley had kept in touch with most of them, but Buffy and Dawn had practically fallen off the grid after the trial; it had been impossible to find any trace of them along his usual contacts…

And now, five years later, Buffy was dating Parker Abrams- the very man Angel wanted them to rob?

Wesley shook his head as he stared at the road ahead.

Angel had _better _have a good explanation for this…

* * *

As soon as he and Connor had arrived back at the warehouse, Wesley had grabbed his friend by the arm and dragged him off to the back of the warehouse, leaving Connor to talk with the others.

"Wha-?" Angel began, looking at Wesley in confusion, before Wesley interrupted.

"Tell me this is not about her, or I'm leaving," he said, glaring at his old boss.

"Who?" Angel asked, apparently genuinely puzzled by Wesley's query.

"Buffy," Wesley replied, glaring at Angel. "Parker Abrams. Tell me this is not about screwing the guy who's screwing your ex-fiancé!"

Angel sighed as he stared back at Wesley. "It's not about that," he said.

Wesley glared back at Angel; they both knew that Angel was lying.

Eventually, Angel sighed. "OK, it's not _entirely_ about that."

"Then why?" Wesley asked, staring back at Angel angrily. "Parker may be the last person left active who achieved his power because of Wolfram & Hart- I'm not denying that- but when you bring _her _into the equation…."

He sighed. "You'd better have a good explanation for why you're after Parker that _doesn't _include her as a major factor."

Angel sighed as well, and looked back at Wesley. "Do you remember what you, Cordelia, Doyle and I said back when we first started our campaign against Wolfram & Hart?" he asked.

Wesley nodded, and Angel continued. "We said we were going to play this game like we had nothing to lose, because that way we wouldn't lose what we truly held dear. Well, I lost something... I lost some_one_. In a way, we all lost someone to them. "

He looked over briefly at Connor as he spoke. "True, I got someone back, but so many of us never had the same chance…"

He turned back to face Wesley. "That's why I'm here."

"Very well, here's the problem," Wesley said, looking back at Angel. "We're stealing two things now- at least a hundred and fifty million dollars, and Buffy. And when push comes to shove, and you can't have both, which are you going to choose?"

He glared at Angel again. "And remember, no matter what else has happened to her in the last few years, the last time I checked, Buffy Summers does not split eleven ways!"

Angel shrugged casually. "If everything goes according to plan, I won't have to make that call," he said, looking back at Wesley. "Trust me; I've got it covered."

He glanced over at the others, making sure they were still a good distance away, before looking back at Wesley. "Now, I've got this one stage of the plan I need your help with…"


	11. Meetings Old and New

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

As she stood in the art gallery that she had taken charge of nearly three years ago, Buffy smiled slightly at the irony of her current situation as she finalised the details of purchasing a painting for the gallery. Ever since the… explosion (She still couldn't bring herself to remember the trial and its aftermath), she and Dawn had been on the move constantly, trying to find somewhere to settle down and make a new life that had no connections with the disaster that had resulted from her old one. She'd contemplated starting up her own detective agency once or twice, when she'd been able to gather together the money that would be needed to arrange an office and the necessary advertisements, but she'd decided against it each time; she didn't want the reminders, no matter how much she enjoyed the work.

Eventually, drawing on their experience from years of their mother owning and organising an art gallery, Buffy had been able to find work in an art gallery attached to the Bellagio casinos, eventually starting her current relationship with the casino manager after Dawn had left to go to college. She still called Buffy now and again, touching base with her only real remaining family, but other than that Buffy had been working here alone for the past two years, arranging the acquisition of new paintings with some aid from Parker.

_Say what you like about the guy; he's got taste in art_, Buffy smiled to herself, as she studied her latest purchase for the gallery; Piccasso's 'Woman With Guitar' made an excellent addition to the gallery's exhibition.

"You like it?" she asked, turning to look at where Parker was standing beside her, dressed in his typically impeccable black business suit.

"I like that you like it," Parker said, shrugging casually before glancing at his watch. "I have to go; there's something on the floor that requires my attention."

"Which is?" Buffy asked; years of detective work may be over, but she still had a certain fondness with knowing everything about her current situation.

Parker smiled casually at her.

"There's _always _something that requires my attention, Buffy," he said, his grin briefly resembling a shark trying to look like a fish before he turned around and walked out of the gallery, leaving Buffy looking after him with a slightly regretful expression on his face.

Charming he may be, but she just wished sometimes that Parker had more _time _for her. He'd had his problems towards the end, but at least…

_No_.

_He _had lied to her for all the years they'd known each other about something so mind-blowingly important that he should have mentioned it as soon as they started seeing each other seriously.

At least Parker had never done _that_…

* * *

Sitting at the main blackjack table, having been upgraded to the High Roller's section after a few good victories, Giles, in his Lyman Zerga persona, was staring at his cards in one hand, even as he opened the bottle of pills he kept with him at all times these days and slipped a couple into his mouth.

"Weak stomach, Mr. Zerga?" one of the other men at the table asked, earning him a glare from the man in question.

"I don't believe in weakness," Giles replied simply. "It costs too much. I don't believe in questions, either."

Nodding politely, the high roller shut his mouth and returned to the game at hand. Glancing up, Giles was relieved to see Parker Abrams was at last emerging from the gallery to join the floor manager of the casino.

Grinning, Giles turned back to his game as he studied his cards, smiling slightly as he noted that he had yet another good hand.

Things were finally starting to really _happen_ on this case…

* * *

"Eddie," Parker said, nodding politely at the floor manager as he shook the man's hand. "Anything for me?"

The man nodded, indicating the high roller table. "Mr. Zerga, sir. Lyman Zerga, sitting in the third position. Wishes to speak with you privately."

Glancing at the table position in question, Parker took note of the man the manager had indicated; mid-fifties, dressed in an expensive-looking suit, with wire-frame glasses. "Who is he?"

The manager shrugged apologetically. "Businessman of some kind, working mostly in Europe. He's very vague, but I asked around. Word is he deals primarily in arms. One of the biggest."

"Zerga?" Parker said skeptically. "Never heard of him."

"Yessir," the manager replied. "That's why I don't doubt it."

"He's staying here?" Parker asked, raising an enquiring eyebrow.

The floor manager nodded. "Checked in two nights ago, sir. He's in the Mirador suite."

"How's he doing?" Parker asked, indicating Zerga's rapidly-growing pile of chips; he had a fair idea of the numbers already, but he'd still prefer a confirmation before he decided on his next move.

"Up," the manager replied. "Almost forty grand."

"Good for him..." Parker muttered to himself, nodding thoughtfully as he studied Zerga. He knew right then that he had to move in; Zerga had too much of Parker's money for him to just be allowed to leave. He had to find out what Zerga wanted to talk to him about, act as though he wished to know Zerga better, make it clear that the staff of the Bellagio were honored by his presence here.

* * *

As Buffy sat at her table, glancing at her watch, she felt a strong pair of male hands reach down to caress her arms through her long black dress, and she smiled.

"You're thirty seconds late," she said teasingly as she began to turn around. "I was about to send out a search…"

Her voice faltered as she saw a long black leather coat rather than the business suit that she normally expected to see in these instances.

And that coat could only belong to one man.

"Angel?" she said, looking up to meet the eyes of the man she had once loved.

"Buffy," Angel replied, smiling at her as though it had only been a few days since they'd last spoken, rather than over five years.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy asked, staring at him in confusion.

"I'm out," Angel said, shrugging casually.

"You're out," Buffy repeated, staring at Angel as though wanting him to elaborate.

"Of prison," Angel said, playing along slightly. "You remember? The day you went out for a walk and I wasn't there when you got back? You _must_ have noticed."

"I don't just 'walk'," Buffy coldly informed him, as he began to pull up a chair. "Don't sit," she said sharply, knowing even as she said it that it was a waste of breath and he'd sit down anyway.

"Now, they said I'd paid my debt to society-" Angel began to say.

"Funny, I never got a check," Buffy retorted coldly, and was annoyed when Angel just smiled back at her.

"You can't stay," she said eventually, more as a way of breaking the sudden silence that had descended over the table than for any other reason.

"It's good to see you," Angel said after another brief pause, as he glanced down at Buffy's hand, noting the absence of both the claddagh ring he'd given her on her seventeenth birthday and the platinum-and-diamond ring he'd given her when he'd asked her to marry him.

"You're not wearing your rings," he said, looking inquiringly at her.

"I sold it," Buffy retorted. "And I don't have a fiancé anymore. Or didn't you get the news?"

Angel shrugged. "I gathered from the trial," he said dismissively. He reached over for her ringless hand with his ringed one, but Buffy snatched the hand back before he could reach it.

"_Angel_," Buffy hissed in frustration. "Go. _Now_. Before..."

"Parker?" Angel asked casually. Then, ignoring the shocked expression on Buffy's face, he beckoned a passing waiter over to the table.

"Hey," he said casually to the waiter, holding his right thumb and forefinger two inches apart. "Whiskey-" he held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, "and whiskey."

"Angel…" Buffy hissed in annoyance as Angel turned to look back at her.

"You're doing a great job curating the museum," Angel said, nodding at her in approval. "Your… well, your mother would be proud."

Buffy sighed in an overly exaggerated manner, but secretly smiled at the approval. She _did _sometimes worry what her mother's opinion would be of how she ran the gallery, and any claim that she was doing a good job was always appreciated, no matter who it was from.

"The Vermeer is quite good," Angel continued, smiling at Buffy; he'd always had a passion for old art, and it had been one of the few things that he and Joyce had actually managed to agree on when he and Buffy had dated. She'd never quite accepted that her daughter was dating a man a decade her senior…

"Simple but vibrant style, that guy," Angel said, turning his attention back to the matter at hand. "Although his work definitely fell off as he got older."

"Remind you of anyone?" Buffy said, already regretting the remark as soon as it came out; she knew as well as anyone that Angel hadn't been arrested because he got old and sloppy, but because…

_No_, she reminded herself. He'd made his call in what to do that night; she had not been responsible for his actions.

"And I _still_ get Monet and Manet confused," Angel said, holding his head in mock frustration before he glanced back up at Buffy. "Which one married his mistress again?"

"Monet," Buffy said simply.

"Right," Angel said, clicking his fingers as though inspiration had just struck him. "Manet was the one who had syphilis, right?"

"They also painted occasionally," Buffy pointed out critically.

They sat there silently for a few moments, before Angel chuckled to himself.

"You don't know _how_ many times I played this conversation out in my head the last five years," he said, a sad grin on his face as he looked back at Buffy.

"Did it always go this poorly?" she asked casually.

Angel shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah," he said, nodding in confirmation.

"Sounds frustrating," Buffy said noncommittally, as though she didn't really care how he felt about it.

Angel shrugged. "You were never an easy nut to crack," he replied, before his slight grin faded and his face was serious once again. "OK, I'll make this quick; I came here for you. I'm gonna get on with my life, and I want you with me."

Buffy glared at him with a harsh expression.

"You're a liar and a killer," she retorted harshly.

Angel sighed. "I only lied about the Connor thing, and you _know _why I killed those people before we met; I was angry and frustrated at the world. I don't do that sort of thing anymore; any time I've killed since then has been purely self-defence."

Buffy sighed in frustration as she stared at Angel, almost as though she was daring him to back down, even though they both knew Angel wouldn't; Buffy's retort had been weak, and they both knew it.

"I'm with someone now who I don't _need _to ask that question to," she said eventually, glaring at Angel.

"No," Angel agreed, nodding as he spoke. "He seems pretty clear that he's focusing on the theft angle."

* * *

As Giles tossed yet another pile of chips onto the table, one of the few remaining high rollers who'd managed to avoid losing his money, looked over in surprise at Giles.

"You don't want to get in the hole too heavy to this Benedict," he said casually to the older man. "A friend of mine once borrowed a hundred g's from the guy. Two months went by, Benedict hadn't heard from him, he calls my friend up, asks 'Where's my money?' I'll get to it when I get to it,' my friend says. Half hour later, Benedict's in my friend's hotel room, dangling him off his 10th floor balcony by his feet. 'You gonna get to it now?'"

He reached over, turned over a card, and it was a nine; Giles had won again.

"Bank wins- natural nine," the dealer said, as Parker stepped forward to greet the other high roller.

"Hi Parker," the high roller said, holding out a hand to the casino owner, who took the hand and shook it.

"Mr. Weintraub," Parker said politely. "How's everything?"

"Eh," the roller said, shrugging dismissively. "They put too much grenadine in my Shirley Temple."

"And here I thought you were drinking vodka," Parker said, chuckling casually as he turned to look at Giles. "Mr Zerga," he said, offering his hand once again.

"Mr Abrams," Giles said, taking the hand and shaking it as he stood up. "I recognize you from the TV. You know, nine casinos out of ten, owner comes up in the middle of the hand to ask me what I want. I respect your waiting."

Parker smiled casually at the ex-librarian, as though it was nothing. "You're the guest, sir."

"And I have to impose on your hospitality," Giles said, before indicating an open seat next to him. "Can you sit in for a hand?"

Parker smiled again and shook his head. "I'd love to, Mr. Zerga, but the gaming board would feed me to my white tigers."

Giles sighed in an exaggerated manner. "That's a shame. You're the king of Vegas and you have to play craps in the alley."

Chuckling again, Parker clapped Giles on the shoulder. "No shame at all; reminds me of my youth," he assured the other man.

* * *

Moments later, Giles was talking to Parker in a corner, Giles having left the table after winning a last hand.

"Mr Abrams," Giles began, "the fight is Saturday, is it not?"

"Yes, it is," Parker said, nodding in confirmation. "I can get you seats-"

"No, no," Giles said, raising a hand in a halting gesture. "Hand-to-hand combat does not interest me. I have a package arriving here Saturday evening. A black briefcase, standard size, the contents of which are… very valuable to me."

Parker shrugged casually.

"That's no problem; I'd be happy to put it in the house safe for you," he assured the other man.

Giles chuckled skeptically as he looked back at Parker. "The house safe is for brandy and grandmother's pearls. I'm afraid I need something more… _secure_."

Parker looked at him critically, as though insulted at the implication that his safe wasn't secure. "I can assure you, the house safe is utterly-"

"I can _assure_ you, Mr Abrams," Giles added, smiling reassuringly at the wealthy businessman, "your generosity in this matter will not go overlooked."

As Parker raised a curious eyebrow, Giles smiled. "Now, what can you offer me besides the safe?"

* * *

Meanwhile, in the restaurant, Buffy and Angel were still talking.

"See, the kind of people you took out," Buffy explained, as she glared at Angel, "they had no troubles once you were finished with them, and, quite frankly, the world was probably better off anyway. _I_ had to leave Sunnydale- leave my entire _life_- to get away from what happened. How do I get my years back, Angel?"

Angel shrugged as he looked at her. "You can't; I accept that. But what you _can_ do is not throw away another five years."

Buffy snorted scornfully. "You don't know anything about-" she began

"_Listen_ to me, Buffy," Angel interrupted, staring fixedly at her. "You don't love me anymore, you want to make a life with someone else? Fine; I'll have to live with that."

He leaned forward slightly to clasp her hand. "But not _him_."

"Spoken like a true ex-boyfriend," Buffy said harshly.

"I'm not joking, Buffy," Angel said, staring back at the woman he loved.

"I'm not laughing," Buffy retaliated harshly. "You have to admit, there's a _bit _of a conflict of interest when you give me advice about my love life."

Sighing, Angel leaned back and stared critically at Buffy.

"Yes," he said, nodding at her in agreement. "But that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

Glancing at his watch, he sighed; if he didn't leave now, the plan would be ruined.

"I have to go," he said, standing up and looking pointedly at Buffy one last time. "But think about what I said, OK?"

* * *

AsAngel walked away from the table, aware all the time of Buffy's eyes on him, as though she was trying to decide what she should do next, there was another pair of eyes watching his movements. These eyes belong to a woman who, on the surface, appeared just as attractive to the male population of the world as Buffy Summers was herself, but it was a darker kind of sexuality. It wasn't just because of her darker hair- brown where Buffy was blonde- but because her aura, her stance, her very _appearance_, seemed to generate an air of darkness that detracted from any physical attraction that might have ever existed.

As Angel left the restaurant by one door, just as Parker Abrams entered by another, the woman smiled to herself.

_So, Angel's back in town_, Lilah Morgan thought to herself, as she glanced down at the young casino owner briefly before her eyes flicked back in the direction that her old nemesis had just departed from.

She smiled.

_This should be interesting…_


	12. Demolition

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

The next day, Spike sat in his hotel room in the Bellagio, studying the various explosives he'd managed to acquire for this mission. He'd known from the beginning that he'd gone over-the-top- after all, they only needed a few small plastic explosives- but he still preferred to be prepared for any eventuality. Currently he was working at 'carving' one of the lumps of explosive into an emerald-shape, another two already prepared for the purpose and a fourth one awaiting similar treatment. He knew they wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny, but under a cursory glance they should look authentic enough to get by even Abrams' well-trained eyes…

There was a sudden knock at the door.

"House cleaning," a voice said at the other side of the door.

"Just jumping into the shower, can you come back later?" Spike called back, only giving the maid a third of his attention; the remaining two-thirds were split between the faux emerald in his hand and the TV, where a reporter was broadcasting live from a scene that Spike had come to know all too well.

"_We're here at the historic Paradiso Hotel and Casino, once the prize resort of Las Vegas, now seconds away from demolition..._" the reporter spoke. The moment had come for Nabbit's casino to be demolished, but, even though this event was the main reason the crew had even managed to get this far in their plans (After all Nabbit never would have funded them unless he wanted revenge againsts Abrams), Spike was the only member of the Eleven immediately available to watch the full event as it was televised. Nabbit had gone down to the casino himself, accompanied by Angel and Connor in case things turned nasty, but the rest of the Eleven were already occupied with constructing the duplicate vault; they still had a few kinks to iron out.

* * *

Just down the street from the Parker Abrams Trinity of casinos, a crowd had already gathered to witness the destruction of the Paradiso casino first-hand. 

Parker Abrams, of course, was one of them, his fingers already hovering over the plunger that would trigger the dynamtie that would send the casino to kingdom come, and his face in the spotlight. Buffy was another, wearing a pair of sunglasses and standing 'near' to her man- near, in this instance, being the steps up to the stage; Parker hadn't wanted her close enough to the centre to draw attention away from him. Angel and Connor stood in the crowd, some distance apart as they watched Nabbit walk onto the stage.

"... and here's David Nabbit," the reporter said, turning to indicate the billionaire in question, "former owner of the Paradiso, come to bid farewell to his fabled resort and wish Parker Abrams all the best with his future plans for the property..."

Parker warmly shook Nabbit's hand, although both of them knew that he was only doing it for the TV cameras and newspaper reporters.

"Good to see you," Parker said to Nabbit loudly, so that the cameras could all hear it.

"Go and get stuffed, why don't you?" Nabbit retorted in a quieter voice; he didn't want to cause a scene in public, especially since Parker would be getting an even _worse _blow to his reputation in a few days…

As Parker turned back to the plunger that would set off the dynamite, turning a Paradiso into the biggest pile of rubble in the city, Angel and Buffy briefly locked eyes, Angel giving Buffy a little grin before she turned away. Connor stared critically at his father, wondering who the woman was to attract so much attention from him, but shoved it to the back of his mind; he'd come here to watch the historic event before him, not keep an eye on his father.

As the cameras flashed in his direction, Parker smiled and waved at the cheering audience, before he took the plunger in his hands and pushed it down.

* * *

As the Paradiso crumbled just outside Spike's window, even as Spike focused his attention on the TV rather than the real thing behind him, the lights and TV in his room flickered and went out. 

After sitting in the dark for a fewmoments, just in case this was all a mere fluke and the power supply was perfectly intact, Spike sighed.

"Shit," he muttered, as he scrambled for the door, sticking a "Do Not Disturb" sign on it as he ran for the street.

If this was caused by what he thought it was, they were about to have a _very _serious problem…

* * *

In the warehouse where the Eleven had concealed their faux vault, the remaining ten members of the team (Spike still absent without leaving any hint as to where he was going) sat around the vault as Wesley explained the plan to them one more time; with the plan only a couple of days from completion, it had been decided to give everyone the day off prior to the night of the heist, so he wanted to go over the groundwork now rather than later. 

"Call is at five-thirty," Wesley said, as he looked around the room once again; it may have been Angel's plan, but Wesley was the better at capturing attention when public speaking was required. "Makeup and costume. Giles's package arrives at seven-fifteen, and Connor grabs our codes. All goes well there and we're a go. Seven-thirty Faith and Gwen deliver Oz and we're committed; from that point, we have thirty minutes to blow the power or he suffocates.

"Once the electricity goes, all entry points to the vault and its elevator will automatically lock down for two minutes. That's when we make our move..."

* * *

A few minutes later, the false vault was deserted. As the door opened, two guards wheeled in a cash cart, leaving it in the vault's centre before they marched out again, closing the thick metal door behind them. As the vault locked, the green lasers on the floor of the floor, programmed to trigger an alarm if the link was broken, activated, even as Oz opened the false top of the cart revealing his neatly-'folded' form. 

Inhaling deeply, Oz then slowly unspooled himself from the cash cart, hauling himself outwards until he crouched on top of it, studying his surroundings with the grace and elan of a cat.

* * *

From outside the vault, in the monitoring room that had been developed to allow the crew to monitor the training programs, Wesley's voice suddenly appeared over the speakers in the vault. 

"OK," Wesley said as he looked at Oz, trying not to be aware of Willow's sudden nervousness as she looked at the first boy she'd ever loved as he studied his surroundings. "They've put you in the middle of the room, far from everything. You have to get from here to the door without touching the floor. What do you do?"

"Five says he shorts it," Gunn commented casually.

"Ten says he doesn't," Connor retorted as he looked back at Gunn; he'd grown to have a lot of faith in the acrobat's abilities.

From a dead squat, Oz leapt from the cash cart to the set of shelves five yards away, hands first, and grabbed it safely without his legs even coming _close _to touching the floor. As Gunn tossed Conner the tenner he owed the young pickpocket, Oz began to inch his way along the shelves, to a position where he could jump to the door…

Then a door slammed behind the crew and Spike entered the room, his normally immaculately-clean clothes covered from head to toe in sewage.

"We're in deep shit," he said, as the others turned to look at him.

After a few moments, Gunn broke the silence.

"Really?" he asked, looking Spike up and down critically. "No offence, but it looks like you're the only one who's been there."

* * *

"The damn demo crew didn't use a coaxial lynch to back the mainline!" Spike yelled in frustration as he sat in front of the other members of the Eleven, each one subtly trying not to smell his now extremely foul body odour; Gwen had volunteered to hose him off, but he wanted to tell them what had happened first. "Onioned the mainframe couplet!" 

"You understand any of this?" Nabbit whispered over to Willow, grateful that they were both at the back of the group.

"I'll explain later," Willow promised the billionaire, Spike continuing to talk as though nothing had happened.

"Blew the backup grid one by one!" he yelled, looking at the group as though this was somehow all _their _fault. "Like dominoes!"

"_Spike_," Angel said, trying not to show that he, like the others, had no real idea what his old 'colleague' was going on about. "What happened?"

"Those bloody demolition bastards," Spike said, as he glared at Angel. "They did _exactly_ what I planned to do, only they did it by accident! Now they know their weakness, _and they're fixing it_!"

"So...?" Angel asked, waving one hand in a prompting gesture.

"_So_," Spike said, as he looked back at Angel, "unless we decide to do this job in Reno, we're screwed.

Angel groaned.

_Great_, he thought to himself. _Just what we need…_ _And things had been going so well up until now too._

"We could-" Wesley began.

"By tomorrow?" Angel interrupted. Wesley just stopped and shook his head; evidently his idea wouldn't work under those kind of time constraints.

For a few moments, the various members of the Eleven just stood there, each trying to come up with a solution to this new problem, when Spike clicked his fingers, inspiration apparently striking him as all eyes turned back to him.

"We could use a pinch," the former heroin adict said, a wide grin on his face.

Instantly Angel was looking harshly at Spike, a focused expression in his eyes.

"_What_," Angel asked, glaring at Spike critically,"is a pinch?"

"A pinch is the equivalent of a cardiac arrest for any broad-band electrical circuitry," Spike said casually.

Angel's eyes widened slightly at that; he'd always thought that the long-winded scientific explanations were Willow's thing rather than Spike's.

"Or better yet," Spike said, noticing the confusion of around half the people in the room (Willow, Giles, Wesley and Oz the only obvious exceptions), "A pinch is a bomb... but without the bomb. See, every time a nuclear weapon detonates, it unleashes an electromagnetic pulse that shuts down any power source within its vicinity."

"What, you mean… you drop a nuke, everything near enough to it gets turned off?" Faith asked, looking at Spike inquiringly.

"Yep," the convict said, smiling in approval at the thief before turning back to the others. "'Course, that tends not to matter in most cases because the nuclear weapon destroys everything you might need power for anyway. Now a pinch creates a similar electromagnetic pulse, but without the headache of mass destruction and death. So instead of Hiroshima, you get the Seventeenth Century."

"For how long?" Gwen asked, smiling slightly; electronics had always been a passion of hers, for reasons she'd never quite been able to figure out, and this concept in particular struck her as rather intriguing.

"About twenty, maybe thirty seconds," Spike said casually. "Should be enough time to do what needs to be done."

"Could a pinch take out the power of an entire city?" Angel put in, deciding they might as well get back on track. "Like, I don't know…"

"Las Vegas?" Spike asked, smiling. "Yeah, I think so…"

Then he sighed in exasperation. "Problem is, there's only one pinch in the world big enough to handle it; it might notknock out the_ whole_city, but it should take out all power on the strip long enough for us to get the job done."

"Where is it?" Wesley put in.

Spike swallowed nervously as he looked at the others.

"Pasadena."

"Ah," Gwen said, rolling her eyes in annoyance as she looked over at her sister.

That _might _make things difficult…

* * *

Meanwhile, in Parker's office, just as he was going over the evening's take, there was a sudden beep on his speaker. 

"Yes?" he asked, tapping the button impatiently.

"_Sir, you have a visitor_," his secretary said on the other end of the line. "_Her name is Lilah Morgan_-"

"Send her in," Parker said, smiling slightly as he hung up. He had lost touch with her after their L.A. office had been destroyed, but, back when he'd needed assistance in getting his casino business off the ground, Lilah had been his contact with Wolfram & Hart, and they'd had an… _interesting _relationship, to say the least (Never sexual, of course, but the promise of it was always there).

"Ah, Miss Morgan," he said, smiling as the door opened and the remarkably sexy brunette walked into the room, grinning at him. "How's things?"

"Oh, about what you'd expect," Lilah said dismissively as she sat down opposite Parker. "Although I _do _have an interesting bit of information about a possible threat to your casino that you may be interested in…"


	13. Stealing the Pinch

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

A few hours later that night, several hundred miles away from Las Vegas, a van pulled up outside the institute where, according to Spike, the pinch was being kept. Certainly the sign at the entrance- "Cal Tech. HIGH-SECURITY AREA. KEEP OUT."- encouraged the idea that there was something in there that nobody wanted to get out of the facility.

Inside the van, Faith and Gwen manned the front seats (Gwen steering; Faith was better in a rapid getaway situation, while Gwen was the better choice if you wanted to remain inconspicuous while on the road) as Angel, Spike, Oz and Connor huddled in the back. It had quickly been decided that the entire team shouldn't be committed to this mission; Giles and Gunn needed to stay behind to maintain their covers as Zerga and a blackjack dealer respectively, Willow still had some work to do regarding their computer control, and Nabbit… well, he cheerily acknowledged that the physical side of this operation was never going to be a strong point.

Besides, he rather enjoyed watching the various elements of their plan to humiliate Abrams unfold in front of him as he satat the heart of the target's little empire…

As the van pulled up in front of the facility, Spike and Oz were both preparing the equipment for their raid in case the worst-case scenarios took place and the direct route to the 'pinch' proved to be impossible: hooks and a rope for Oz, and a small blowtorch and a drill for Spike.

"You two ready?" Angel said, glancing over at Spike and Oz inquiringly.

They nodded, Spike giving Angel a small grin.

"OK," Angel said, as he looked at the two of them, "We've only got a limited time frame before the alarms go off and we've got security breathing down our necks. Let's go."

The three of them instantly started out the van doors, Connor close behind them, but Angel quickly spun around to look at his son.

"What are you doing?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Coming with you; what'd you think?" Connor said, glaring at his father.

Apparently ignorant of his son's temper, Angel just smiled and shook his head, as though he was telling an eight-year-old Connor that he couldn't go to the park with his friends until he'd done his chores.

"But..." Connor began, visibly fuming, but the van door was then slammed shut in his face, cutting off any future argument on this subject.

* * *

Glancing out the van window, Faith watched casually as Angel picked the lock on the door, then he, Oz, and Spike disappeared into the lab's interior, leaving the two Raiden sisters sitting around in the van, with a brooding teenager (Almost a man, but still; eighteen was still a _teen_ager) in the back who evidently _wouldn't_ be in a chatty mood right now… 

_Aw well_, Faith thought to herself, as she glanced over at her sister, _might as well get started on the killing-time thing, huh_?

"Twenty questions," she said, looking critically at her sister. "I've got someone already; all you have to do is guess who it is."

"Are you a woman?" Gwen asked; as always, she was direct and to the point.

"Yes; nineteen," Faith replied dismissively.

"Are you alive?" Gwen continued.

"Yes; eighteen," Faith said simply.

"Sigourney Weaver," Gwen said, a casual grin on her face as she sat back in the driver's seat.

"Shit!" Faith groaned, thumping her head briefly against the seat before turning to look at Gwen. "Okay, your turn..."

A few minutes later, as Conner slumped against the van door, trying desperately to resist the temptation to just punch through the van's sides in frustraion, the Raiden's conversation had moved on to other topics; for some bizarre reason, they now seemed to have started discussing advanced physics and the string theory of reality, despite the fact that _neither _of them had more than a high-school education on any topic that didn't involve theft, driving or sex.

"Co-sign squared over .0455," Gwen said casually.

"No," Faith said, sighing in frustration as she looked at her sister. "I _think _you'll find it's co-sign squared over .04_1_5."

".04-_five_-five," Gwen retorted.

"_One_-five," Faith repeated, clenching her seat slightly as though trying to stop herself hitting something; she'd always been the more violent of the two of them.

"You're so wrong," Gwen said, smiling smugly as she leaned back in her seat.

"_You_ don't know your string theory… _berk_," Faith retorted. Even in a mood like this, she still remembered her basic rule; never swear _at _her sister. Around her, yes; _at _her, no.

Personally Connor had never understood it; it wasn't like Gwen was a little girl anymore…

But, on the other hand, maybe it tied into Faith's theory that her sister had been… abused (Connor always hated thinking of someone capable of doing something that horrible to a small child)… in the past. Maybe she always tried not to be too hard on her sister as a result, worried that the wrong word might bring back some kind of memory of the incident if spoken to her directly…

Or, Faith could just be odd that way.

After a spell of silence (Which was greatly appreciated by Connor, naturally), Gwen finally spoke up, ruining his hope of getting through the rest of the wait without wanting to kill somebody.

"Mom told me she loves me more," she said, looking teasingly over at Faith; she had at least moved on to a topic that they could argue _coherently _on.

"She told me she was going to tell you that," Faith said, shrugging dismissively.

In the back of the truck, Connor groaned and raised his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to block out the sisters' squabbling.

"Stop it," Faith said briefly.

"Make me," Gwen retorted.

"Stop it."

"Make me."

Then they started to wrestle slightly (Punching each other on the shoulder, that sort of thing), and Conner finally snapped; he wasn't going to take this any more.

_If 'Dad' wanted me to 'stay at home with the babysitter', he should have just left me at the casino; I've got feelings of my _own_, you know_… he fumed to himself. Opening the van's back door, he jumped lightly out and headed for the laboratory. Unnoticed by the Raidens as they continued to argue, he slipped inside the side door that Angel's team had entered the building by only a few minutes ago and entered the facility…

* * *

And, a few feet down and about thirty seconds later, the main door of the laboratory opened, and Angel, Spike, and Oz appeared, the large clear, yellow/green and white form of the 'pinch' on a cart between Angel and Spike, Oz guiding the delicate piece of machinery as they headed for the van. 

As soon as they were inside, the pinch loaded in the middle, Angel nodded at the drivers.

"We got it," the former private investigator said briefly. "Let's go."

Nodding, Gwen turned back to face the windscreen. As she and Faith fastened their seatbelts, she floored it and they began to drive away, heading back towards the location of what would soon be the greatest heist in history…

"Wait a minute…" Angel said, holding up a hand, a suddenly anxious expression on his face as he scanned the group sitting around him and noted a significant shortage in terms of numbers. "Where's Connor?"

As Gwen's foot slammed down on the brake, everyone swiftly realized that Angel was correct; his son was conspicuous by his absence.

Angel was just about to ask who saw Connor last, when sirens and alarms blared to life, prompting Angel and Spike to turn behind them and stare out of the back of the van, scanning the compound they'd just left, Angel hoping and praying that he was wrong…

He groaned.

He _wasn't_ wrong.

"There he is…" he sighed, pointing at one of the glass staircases, currently showing Connor scrambling up the steps only a flight or so away from a duo of chasing guards. He wasn't sure which was worse; _not _knowing where Conner was, or knowing that he was in serious trouble that they could do nothing about…

As the young man ascended out of sight, the group turned their focus to the other side of the building, Spike cursing as they saw two more security guards heading in that direction, evidently intending to cut Connor off and trap him.

"One of us should help him," Gwen put in from the front of the car. Oz simply swore slightly under his breath as he stared at the situation before him; Spike .

Angel was about to say something, but then Spike beat him to it.

"Then there'll be two of us who need saving," he said, looking over at the group leader. Regretting it even as he did it, but knowing he had no choice, Angel simply nodded.

"He knows where we are," he said, hoping that this would be enough for his son to escape unharmed.

_I promised Darla I'd protect him…_

Then the guards reached the top of the staircase, meeting their counterparts from the other direction, and there was nobody there.

"What the… where'd he go?" Faith asked, staring at the others in confusion.

Glancing over at each other, Angel and Spike could see that the same thought had occurred to both of them; after all, they would have done the same thing back in the old days. Slowly, the two of them turned to look along the building, and then…

CRASH!

A second-story window exploded in front of them, a desk chair flying through it, followed shortly by Connor as the young pickpocket ran down a lower rooftop on the building in question.

Smiling gratefully, Angel spun around to look at the others.

"Alright, back it up, back it up!" he yelled, a broad grin on his face. Gwen rapidly shifted into reverse as Connor ran along the overhang, sending the van shooting back towards the building. As soon as the two of them were close enough, Connor leapt down onto the reversing van…

And then rolled along its roof and down its windshield, hitting the ground in front of them rather than simply grabbing onto the van roof.

"Looks like the kid didn't inherit your athletic ability, Peaches," Spike said, grinning teasingly over at Angel before a harsh look from Gwen, Faith and Oz silenced him.

"C'mon, c'mon..." Angel muttered, glancing nervously at the building as Connor scrambled to his feet and ran towards the back of the van. Even as Gwen began to start the engine again, Angel and Oz had opened the doors and were hauling Connor into the van, one door already shut as the guards ran out of the building and Gwen was forced to start the van…

Causing the second door to slam shut onto Oz's left hand as he reached out to grab the door in question.

"ARGH!" Oz screamed, as the van hurtled away. Clutching his hand, Oz collapsed back against the nearby chair. Spike, the one nearest to the greaseman, quickly leaned over, shutting the door to avoid accidents, before turning to examine Oz's injuries. Angel, meanwhile, just glared at Connor, his anger at his son evident in his expression.

"I say stay in the van, you stay in the van, _got it_?" he yelled, glaring at Connor angrily. "If you lose focus for one _second_ in this game, someone gets hurt!"

Silently fuming, Connor could only glare at his father. For a moment, Angel thought that Connor wouldn't say anything, then the young man nodded briefly.

"_I got it_," the young pickpocket said simply, glaring daggers at the man who had helped bring him into the world as they began the long trip back towards Las Vegas.

_Well_, Angel thought to himself in annoyance, that_ could have gone better_.


	14. Angel's Out

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

Back in the hotel, things weren't going as well for the team as they would have liked. Since Angel's team had left to acquire the pinch, none of the others had much to do to occupy their time; Wesley couldn't go out much for fear of blowing his cover when the time came for him to play his part in the heist, Nabbit was trying to avoid attracting attention by hanging around the casino and so remained in his penthouse most of the time, only sneaking into their hotel rooms to discuss the plan when in some kind of 'disguise', and Willow was constantly making sure that the information she'd acquired from the computers didn't change or reconfigure itself in a manner that would prevent her using the link later.

Only Gunn and Giles had spent a significant amount of time in the casino over the last couple of days, and even then they had avoided contact with each other unless it was unavoidable; Giles wasn't even playing blackjack at the table Gunn was dealing at, in case they let something slip. As it was, the group hadn't even spoken to Gunn since arriving in the hotel; they had to create the impression that he had no friends in this part of the world.

Right now, however, Willow had bigger problems than bemoaning the fact that she was losing touch with her _new_ friends when she was having a hard enough time keeping up-to-date with her old ones.

Specifically, the little detail she'd just found on the casino's private web site…

"Oh boy…" she muttered, as she constantly tapped the keys, wishing she could just clear this out of the computers without arousing suspicion even though it was too late for _anything _like that.

"Problem?" Wesley asked, looking over inquiringly at her; he'd dropped into her room in order to make sure that she was maintaining her programming link into the system.

"You could say that…" Willow muttered, glancing over at the computer screen displaying the hotel entrance just as the rest of the team walked through revolving doors, all in dark sunglasses and all wearing some kind of hat (Angel had decided it was the best way to avoid people noticing their faces without taking stupidly elaborate precautions such as facial make-up).

At least she wouldn't have to wait long to tell the rest of the team the bad news.

Honestly, they only had a few _hours _to go until everything kicked off- just enough time to get things ready as it _was_, without any kind of last-minute changes to the fine details about who did what- and now something like _this _had to happen to them…

* * *

As soon as he stepped into the room and saw Willow standing there, her hands on her hips as the computer monitor behind her displayed what looked eerily like his face, Angel knew that something potentially problematic had taken place. 

"We have a problem," Willow said simply.

"What; Peaches suddenly became famous for his appearance in hair gel ads?" Spike asked, looking briefly at the picture on the monitor before turning to look at Angel, a joking smile on his face. "What brand do you use, by the way?"

"_Spike_…" Angel said, glaring threateningly at his former protégé before turning back to look at Willow. "What happened?" he asked, as though nothing more serious had happened then him missing a few minutes of a movie he was watching.

"You've been red-flagged," Willow said, indicating the screen behind her. Looking at it more closely, Angel noticed that it seemed to be his old prison file; it had his weight, his height, distinguishing features, and the crime he'd been imprisoned for (Although Angel noted, with some disgust at the authorities, that the file was using the exaggerated Wolfram & Hart information about his crimes; he definitely had _not _committed 'Multiple Homicide' when he'd blown up an _empty _office, and he'd only ever killed any of his opponents in a fight when it was either him or them).

"The second you step onto the floor of that casino, you'll have all eyes on you," Willow explained, as the rest of the team sat down in various chairs around the room while Angel and Willow continued to talk. "You won't be able to so much as _point _at Abrams without having security coming down on you like someone just demolished the Great Wall of China; the chances of him actually _believing_ that you are who you'll be claiming to be, even with a disguise, are slim to none."

"Ah," Angel said, nodding slightly as he took in what Willow was saying.

"Any ideas about _how _this happened?" Nabbit asked, looking inquiringly at Angel from where he was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room.

"I do," Connor stated. As everyone turned to stare at Angel's estranged son, the young pickpocket gave a half-smile in his father's direction before turning to address the entire room. "He's been after Abrams' woman; ended up in a rather… _public _meeting with her in the casino restaurant a couple of days ago."

"Wait a minute; you were _watching _that?" Angel said, sitting up to stare incredulously at Connor, apparently unconcerned about this proof of his acting outside the plan. "I thought I _told_ you to focus on _Abrams_!"

"I told him to do that," Wesley said, staring harshly at his former employer from the door where he'd been standing since the others arrived.

As soon as Wesley spoke, Angel was up and on his feet, walking over to glare directly into Wesley's face.

"_What_!" he yelled, causing Wesley to flinch back slightly from the sheer volume of the team leader's voice. "Why did you _do _that?"

"I had to make sure you could leave Buffy alone," Wesley replied, staring back at Angel. "Trust me, I take no pleasure in the fact that I was correct in my guess."

"Wait a minute; _Buffy's_ here?" Willow said, staring incredulously at Angel and Wesley, wishing that Giles was here to back her up; out of the rest of the group, after Angel, Wesley, and herself, Giles had known Buffy the best.

After all, back when Buffy had arrived in Sunnydale, Giles had been one of the few people at school who'd actually known about her secondary 'career' of dealing with criminals, providing them with all kinds of helpful pieces of information when dealing with some of their more eccentric opponents. For a time, he'd even dated Buffy's mother Joyce- as the two oldest unofficial members of their group, they had found a great deal to bring them together- but after Joyce's death of a brain tumour, Giles and Buffy had drifted apart, uncomfortable about the reminder of what they'd lost that was represented by the other.

However, at the moment, Wesley didn't seem too concerned about the volume; he was more concerned with the immediate topic of discussion.

"I'm sorry," he said, staring at Angel with a pained expression on his face. "I didn't know if it would sting you, but it did."

He paused for a moment, and then, having gathered himself sufficiently, said the most difficult sentence he'd ever had to say.

"You're out, Angel."

"He's _out_!" Gwen said, staring incredulously at Wesley. The rest of the team were looking at the former librarian with similar expressions, but everyone else was too shaken to actually _voice _their shock at the statement.

"It's _that_, or we shut down right now," Wesley said, as he glanced around briefly at the rest of the team. "His involvement puts us all at risk; if Abrams realizes that we know Angel, we could _all _end up in prison."

"This _isn't_ your call!" Angel said, standing up and walking over to glare at Wesley.

Staring back at Angel, Wesley shook his head.

"You made it my call," he said, a regretful tone in his voice as he looked at Angel. "When you put _her_ ahead of _us_… you made it mine."

"This is _my_ job!" Angel said, glaring at Wesleyt. "I went to all this effort to come up with a means of stopping the _last _remnants of Wolfram & Hart; you can't just take it away from me!"

Wesley could only shake his head at that.

"I can… and I will," he said, his arms folded as he looked at Angel. "You made a choice, Angel; you have to learn to live with the consequences of your actions."

For a moment, as the two men stared at each other, the rest of the people in the room thought that they were about to come to blows…

But then Angel seemed to give up; he just sighed, gave everyone else in the room an apologetic glance, and then walked out to the balcony. He only paused to stare briefly at _Connor_, a harsh glare of the kind that_ Connor_ normally directed at _Angel _rather than the other way around, and then he was out of the room.

"But… but... he _can't_ just be _out_!" Willow said, staring in shock at Wesley. "W-who's going to take his place?"

Wesley just smiled slightly and glanced over at Connor.

"Do you think you're up for it?" he asked, the right corner of his mouth turning totally upwards in a half-smile as Connor's eyes widened in surprise.

For a moment, Connor's eyes drifted away from the rest of the team to look out at the window where Angel was currently standing, as his father leaned on the balcony, staring listlessly off into space.

In that moment, Connor regretted what he'd done more than he had ever regretted anything about his relationship with his biological father.

Just because it was the right thing to do- after all, as Willow had said, Angel couldn't even pick his nose in the casino without attracting attention any more- didn't make it any easier. He

But, right now, it was all going to be down to him. Oz, Faith, Gwen, Spike, Giles, Gunn, and Wesley all already had various parts to play for the plan to succeed, nobody could attend to the monitors and casino computer system as well as Willow could, and Nabbit was too well-known for _any _disguise to be successful.

It was him, or it was nobody.

He could only nod.

Glancing over at Willow, Wesley nodded. "Find Giles, Gunn and Nabbit; let them know about the change in plan."

Looking around at the others, he nodded once at them all. "The curtain goes up at seven; we have only a few hours left to prepare. Everyone get ready."

Nodding briefly- she didn't trust herself to speak right now- Willow stood up and left the room, leaving the rest of the team staring around at each other incredulously, as though they couldn't believe what they'd just seen take place in front of them. As Wesley walked out of the room to the balcony, apparently to have a brief word with Angel, Connor could only collapse onto the nearby bed as he tried to process what had just taken place.

_He _was now the man who would be responsible for implementing the most crucial part of the plan…

As the room suddenly fell silent once more, Oz looked around at the rest of the people in the room, a curious expression on his face.

"Buffy's with Abrams now?" he asked, tilting his head to one side in an quizzical manner.

Nobody responded; they were still all too surprised at what had just taken place.

"She's too tall for him," Oz said simply.

Then he got up, opened a nearby chest of drawers, pulled out a black long-sleeved skintight shirt and a pair of equally dark (And form-fitting) trousers, and headed off to the bathroom to change.

* * *

A couple of hours later, time rapidly running against them, Connor stood in the middle of the room, dressed in a sharp, conservative suit– a far cry from the threadbare thief that he'd been back when Angel had recruited him on the train. As the rest of the team prepared for their parts of the mission (The closest member of the group at present was Willow, and she was in the adjoining room), Wesley was the only other person in the room at present, sitting on the bed as he studied Connor's posture. 

"Where are you going to put your hands?" he asked, raising a critical eyebrow at the young man.

Uncertainly, Connor moved to clasp his hands, but Wesley instantly shook his head.

"No," he said simply.

"And not the pockets either," he added, as Connor's hands moved for his pockets.

"And _don't _touch the tie; look at _me_!" he said once more, as Connor's right hand moved upwards as though to fiddle with the knot of his tie.

As Connor moved to obey, Wesley indicated his legs, which were positioned about shoulder-width apart.

"Is that how you're going to stand?" he asked, staring at Connor critically.

Connor shifted his balance slightly, moving his legs closer together, but Wesley shook his head.

"Wrong again," he said, before his expression became more fixed as he stared at Connor. "If I ask you a question, and you have to think of the answer, where are you going to look?"

Connor looked down.

"Death," Wesley said, shaking his head. "You look down, they know you're lying-"

As Connor looked up uncertainly, Wesley barely even paused for breath.

"-and up they know you don't know the truth."

Reaching over, he placed a hand on Connor's shoulder, drawing the young man's attention to him as he continued to speak.

"Don't use three words when one will do, don't shift your eyes, look always at your mark but don't stare, be specific but not memorable, funny but don't make him laugh, he's gotta like you then forget you the moment you've left his sight, and for God's sake," here Wesley raised a finger to emphasis what he was about to tell Connor, "whatever you do, _don't_, under _any_ circumstances-"

"Wes, can you come here for a second?" Willow's voice called out from off in the next room, breaking Wesley off in mid-rant.

"Of course; I'll be right there," Wesley said, nodding briefly at Connor before he walked out of the room, leaving Connor standing in the middle of the room, utterly bewildered, a thousand commandments to remember and what seemed like only a few seconds to remember them all in.

It was official; this was going to be _very _difficult…


	15. Let the Games Begin

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

Later that night, in her private suite, Buffy Summers sat in her bathroom, readying herself for the big evening as she applied what little make-up she commonly wore in these situations. Even when she'd been at school and a member of 'the popular crowd'- before the incident with the demented rapists and her having to burn the gym down- she'd never really been all that interested in make-up, preferring to rely on her own natural appearance to attract attention.

For a moment, Buffy felt a brief pang of regret that she even felt the need to do all this as she met her own glance in the mirror- her _last _boyfriend had always assured her she looked fine whatever she wore, but Parker kept on trying to make her dress in a manner that made her look like she was worth at least a few million dollars and was determined to _look _like she was more than she actually _was_.

True, she thought that it was nice that he was willing to spend all that money on her, but she'd like to feel as though she had more _control _over her choice of dress than she seemed to have at times…

Glancing into the mirror, Buffy idly noticed Parker in its reflection, pacing the bedroom behind her as he talked impatiently into his cell phone.

"Yes," Parker said on the phone, rolling his eyes slightly in exasperation at whoever was on the other side as he spoke. "Yes. No. Very much _no_."

There was a pause for a moment, and then Parker continued talking.

"Then inform Mr. Levin he'll find a better view of the fight in front of his _television_," Parker finally stated, snapping angrily into the phone; evidently, someone was trying to arrange better seats for tonight's fight and he wasn't happy about it. "Surely _he_ must have H.B.O."

Terminating the connection with an angry jab at the button, Parker sighed, tossed the phone off to one side, and walked into the bathroom. Standing behind her, Parker placed his hands on her shoulders, and, his head above hers, looked into the mirror before the two of them for a moment.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, a casual tone belying the underlying tension in his body.

Buffy wasn't sure _why _this was- if he knew about her meeting with Angel, she had no doubt he would have mentioned it by now; he could sometimes be annoyingly jealous- so she tried to shrug it off and act normal.

"You," she replied simply, smiling slightly at him in the mirror; after all, even if it wasn't quite in the context that she hoped her tone implied it was, she _had _been thinking of him…

However, Parker appeared unconcerned about that; shrugging in a nonchalant manner, as though he'd almost _expected _her to say that, he turned around and walked back into the bedroom, heading for the wardrobe that contained his suit.

Buffy tried to pass it off as she continued applying make-up, but, once again, her mind through up an unwelcome comparison between her present and her past.

_Parker _seemed to take it for granted that she'd be thinking about him; _Angel _had often told her that he'd always be amazed that someone like her would even _look _at him…

_Stop it_! Buffy mentally scolded herself, as she turned her attention back to the matter of getting ready. _He _lied _to you for _years_; stop _thinking _about him like that!_

Even as she turned back to the mirror, however, she knew that such a thing was easier said than done…

* * *

As he took the elevator down to the main floor of the casino for one last check over the place before the fight began, Parker glanced at his watch, noting with self-approval that he was in plenty of time for his meeting with Lyman Zerga. If nothing untoward occurred, he should manage to finish his business with the man and still have plenty of

As the elevator doors opened, Parker took a moment to survey his surroundings, once again confirming his status as 'the king of Las Vegas' in his mind- having come so far he was _determined _not to let the opportunity to appreciate his wealth go by- and then walked out into the casino, at seven o'clock on the dot.

All in all, he had to admit that he was very satisfied with how things were going. He was the owner of three of the most profitable casinos in Las Vegas, bringing in more money in a month than most people made in a year, and anyone who messed with him not only ended up ruined, the lives of those _connected _to them were _also _ruined.

_Ah yes_, Parker mused to himself, as he began to head towards the floor manager. _Whoever said it first was correct; it is indeed _very _good to be King…_

* * *

Little did Parker know that, from a window above him, as he headed for his customary appointment with his casino manager, Liam 'Angel' Angelus was watching him, casually swirling a drink in his hand as he studied the man whose life he was about to ruin.

Despite himself- he had promised to try and keep emotion _out _of the matter at hand- Angel smiled as he glared at the self-proclaimed 'King of the Strip' walking below him.

_Payback's a bitch, you bastard_, he grinned, as he stared at one of the few men left who personified the evil that had taken away his life. _I may not be a bitch, but trust me; I'm _payback.

He just hoped everything went according to plan at the other end; that last-minute adjustment to the plan could cause problems…

But, if his revenge was going to be successful, _everything _needed to be covered.

* * *

In another room of the casino, as she sat in her chair, Lilah Morgan smiled casually as she listened to a phone call.

"So, you're _sure _this is going to work?" she asked, casually tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair as she spoke. "Just because you were pretty much the best I had back then doesn't mean I'm just taking everything you're telling me as gospel, you know…"

"_Trust me; the plan can't fail_," the voice on the other end said. "_You know as well as I do that the bruiser you hired _hates _Angel; even if he doesn't kill him, our favourite detective will be in no shape to interfere with the plan until it's too late and his… associates… are down for the count_."

"And you're _sure _you've got the evidence we need?" Lilah asked, trying to conceal her anxiety and eagerness at the prospect of finally putting Angel away for good. "I didn't come this far to fail at the last minute…"

"_Everything's been recorded to be used as evidence, and I've already sent it to the post office to be sent to you once everything's over; you'll be fine_," the voice said, before his tone become suddenly inquiring. "_I still don't understand why you don't just take Angel out _before _he starts, rather than wait for his associates to begin the plan_…"

Lilah sighed slightly.

"Simple, my good sir," she said sarcastically, as she leaned back in the chair to get slightly more comfortable before continuing. "If I go after Angel _now_, than I don't have any actual _evidence _that he's doing anything wrong. I do it _this_way, I can catch him pretty much red-handed; I'd like to see him get out of _that_."

"_Indeed_," the man said simply.

"You're not having… _doubts_, are you?" Lilah asked, raising a curious eyebrow as she leaned forward in the chair once again. "I mean, he _is _your 'friend', as well as those people you're working with; maybe you don't _want _to do this to him-"

"_I spent four years following the orders of a man who I could have outwitted and outsmarted every day of the _week_, and when he gets out of jail he just _automatically _expects me to follow his orders as though nothing has changed and he's _somehow _smarter than me, even though _he _was captured while _I _wasn't_," the voice on the other end of the line said angrily. "_Trust me, Lilah; I'm willing to do this. If Angel thinks I'll just _blindly _follow him like everyone else, he- and those _idiots _who are still prepared to take orders from him- deserve everything that's going to happen to them once this night is over_."

Lilah smiled.

"Gotcha, Wes; you're willing to take down Angel, and that's all I need," she said, grinning broadly at the man on the other end of the line. "See you tonight when it's all over; you know where I'll be."

Then she terminated the call and sat back in her chair, a broad grin on her face at the thought of the double prize she'd have bagged by the end of tonight; one of the best screws she'd _ever _had (Not that she'd ever tell him that) _and _Liam Angelus, back in prison for attempted grand theft…

Life was good.

Life was _very _good.

* * *

After the customary quick stroll through the casino Noting, much to his pleasure, that he was so far brining in more money than he was losing), Abrams soon found himself standing alongside his casino Manager, acting exactly according to his personal schedule.

"Any sign of Angelus?" he asked, glaring at the man with an expression that suggested that, if there _had _been a sign of Angelus, it would be his fault.

"Not in a couple hours," the manager replied, glancing inquiringly at his boss. "If we see him, you want him out? I can bounce him from the state for parole violation if you like."

For a moment, Parker couldn't deny that the prospect was certainly tempting, but, after a moment's contemplation, he shook his head; it lacked the personal touch that he preferred in these kind of situations.

"Just put a guy on him," he said, as he looked back at the manager. "He's here for a reason, and I'd like to know what it is. But if he comes anywhere _near_ Buffy…"

He left the threat hanging for a moment, and then finished his sentence. "Take it to the next level.

"The bruiser?" the manager asked, raising an eyebrow as a small smile crossed his lips. After learning who'd angered his boss, he'd checked the files on Angel, and noted a link between Angel and one of their more… efficient bruisers (Although he doubled up as manual labour and construction) which should make a meeting between the two… interesting, to say the least.

Parker, however, gave no indication that he knew about the link in question; he simply nodded and continued on his way to the door of the casino. As he approached it, he saw the man he knew as Lyman Zerga standing at the door, his back ramrod straight as he stared through sliding glass doors out at the valet station.

* * *

As Abrams approached him from behind, two security guards walking half a pace behind him, 'Zerga's' eyes flicked briefly to a point on the glass that showed Abrams' reflection, but he didn't bother to turn. This was for two reasons; firstly, he didn't want to give Abrams the impression that he considered him worthy of his attention, and second, he didn't even _like _the man that much, and wanted to simply pay as little attention to him as humanly possible.

"Mr. Abrams," Giles said, nodding briefly at the man whose life he was about to ruin as he stepped up to stand beside Giles, the security men positioned behind them.

"Mr. Zerga," Parker said, nodding back at the man he knew as Lyman Zerga. "It's a very busy night for me. Are we on schedule?"

"I have no reason to suspect otherwise," Giles said, taking care to remember his accent; it wouldn't do to slip up at the last minute right now. "My couriers should be here momentarily."

For a moment, there was silence as Abrams studied Giles, as though trying to decide something, but then he spoke.

"It's a nice evening," he said, indicating the door before them with one hand as he looked at Giles. "Shall we wait outside?"

* * *

As the two men emerged from the casino, guards around them, neither of them were aware of the brief conversation that was taking place only a few metres away from them (Although Giles knew the speakers were present; he just wasn't certain where they _were _in relation to him), as a figure dressed in a black suit sat in a car and, eyes fixed on the doors, raised a small radio to his mouth.

"They're in position," the speaker said, a small smile on her face as she spoke.

"Okay," the voice of Willow Rosenberg said on the other end of the radio, no trace of her usual anxiety present now that all the loose ends were tied up. "We're a go; good luck, break a leg, and all that."

Nodding grimly, Faith terminated the call and glanced back at Gwen, grinning slightly at the fake moustache on her sister's lip; she tended not to think too much about the fact that she was wearing one herself.

"You ready?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she studied her sister.

Gwen nodded grimly as she stared at the casino, her hands clasped tightly on the wheel as she glared ahead; she always seemed to take the whole 'redemption' theme of their work with Angel more to heart than Faith did.

"Right then," Faith said, glancing at her wrist once to make sure the briefcase was attached before settling back into the seat. "Let's do it."

* * *

As the two men stood outside the casino, a white, unmarked van pulled in from the street and raced up to the curb where they had just positioned themselves to wait for the arrival of the package.

Once again wearing their chauffer disguises, their breasts strapped down as well as could be done without resorting to plastic surgery, Faith and Gwen stepped out of the car, their hair hundled up under chauffer hats. Faith stepped out of gets out the passenger's side, a briefcase handcuffed to her wrist, as Gwen comes around from the driver's side, both of them dressed in their bodyguard suits.

"Mr. Zerga," Gwen said, nodding politely at Giles, trying to disguise her usual accent as much as possible and keep her voice deep. "A gift from Mr. Hesse."

As she spoke, Faith extended the arm connected to the briefcase to Giles, so that they both clasped the handle. As soon as both of them had a hold on the handle, Gwen stepped forward, a key in her hand, to unlock the cuff on her sister's wrist. As soon it was off, the cuff was transferred to Giles's wrist and clamped shut. Politely, Gwen handed the key to Giles, who took it and nodded briefly at the two of them.

"Thank you, Friedrich, Gunther," he said, nodding briefly at the two of them before turning to look at Abrams. The two men exchanged confirming nods, and then they retreated into the hotel, the security guards and the Raidens flanking them.

* * *

As he dealt blackjack to a full table, knowing he had to keep acting normal until the time came for his part in the plan, Gunn couldn't resist briefly glancing up as he heard the faint trace of footsteps; Giles had assured him that he'd be allowed to see them take the steps that would lead to the end of the people who'd ruined his life.

After all, he'd like one last reminder of just how big a bunch of _jerks _these guys could be to assure him that he was doing the right thing.

As he heard the footsteps, Gunn allowed his eyes to briefly gaze past his players, settling on the familiar forms of Giles and the Raidens before passing them to stare at Abrams and his guards.

As he busted the cards, Gunn chuckled inwardly.

_Lookin' like a bad night for the house_… he mused inwardly, as he prepared to deal out his current hand once more.

In a matter of moments, these bastards would have lost pretty much everything they'd spent the last few years recreating after Angel blew up their offices…

And, if they were willing to rebuild _again_, Gunn would be _very _surprised; he doubted that _anybody _could be _that _persistent, insurance company or not.

* * *

It was only by chance that Parker even noticed Angel. As he walked through the casino behind the man he knew as Lyman Zerga, constantly scanning his surroundings, his eyes soon fell on the man who, according to Lilah Morgan, was the single greatest threat to both his career and his future relationship with Buffy Summers; the man who called himself 'Angel', lurking at a slot machine.

"Find Mr. Harris," he said to the nearest guard as he looked at Angel, sure to keep his voice low so that 'Zerga' couldn't hear him. "Tell him Mr. Angelus is in the west slots, and tell him to get ready to… do what I pay him for."

The guard nodded briefly at Abrams and then walked away, leaving his boss to continue walking with Giles

"I'm afraid I can't allow any private security personnel inside the casino cages," Parker said, indicating Faith and Gwen with a wave of his hand as he did so. "I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," Giles said, shrugging nonchalantly; in all fairness, it hardly mattered how many people were there when he handed the package over, given that he wasn't going to be picking it up when everything was over anyway. 

With that in mind, Giles turned to dismiss Faith and Gwen- they had needed to leave for the next part of the plan anyway- when an old man who Giles vaguely recognized from the racetrack, passing by on his way to a sports betting window, glanced in his direction and, worst of all, managed to recognize him.

"Giles?" the man said, grinning broadly as he stared at the ex-librarian. "Rupert Giles, is that you?"

Turning away, Giles did his best to ignore the man, even though he knew it wouldn't be enough; Parker Abrams couldn't fail to notice that this guy seemed to know 'Lyman Zerga' by another name.

"Giles, it's me!" the man said, removing his sunglasses to grin broadly at the other man. "Bucky Buchanan, remember? From Saratoga?"

Sighing slightly as he did so, wishing there was a way to do this that _wouldn't _insult Buchanan- he was a decent enough person, if Giles recalled- Giles turned to face this man, with shark's eyes.

"Friedrich, Gunther," he said, nodding briefly at Gwen and Faith even as he made a mental note to send an explanation and a few hundred dollars to the man before him to make up for what he had to do at the moment. "An order: dispose of this man."

Nodding briefly at Giles, Gwen and Faith walked up to Buchanan, grabbed him by his elbows, and hauled him away, leaving Giles to turn back to Parker and shrug apologetically.

"Mr. Abrams..." he said, as though nothing had happened, as he gestured to the handcuff connecting him to the briefcase. "Please; I have never enjoyed the touch of steel to my skin."

As he began to walk towards the doors of the vault, Giles sent up a silent thanks to whoever was watching him up there at the moment, even as he hoped that his luck would hold and the others would begin _their _parts of the plan soon.

If he was keeping track of the time accurately, Connor should be in position by now, leaving them only waiting for Gwen and Faith to get into position for Oz's role of the plan to begin…

* * *

As he watched Parker and Giles round the corner from his position among the slot machines- he'd concluded it was as good a way to remain anonymous in a casino as any- Angel smiled to himself.

So far, the core plan was going off without a hitch; in a matter of moments, the briefcase would be on its way into the vault, accompanied by Oz (So long as the Raidens remained on schedule, given that little unexpected arrival), and then…

Well, that was where the plan got _really _cunning, if Angel said so himself…

And on that topic, it was time for Angel to finish his business here. Pulling the lever of the machine before him, Angel smiled slightly as the four cherries slid into position before him. Glancing around himself, Angel's eyes fell on the surrounding group of octogenarians as they put coins into the machine listlessly. Quickly picking his 'target- a senior citizen to seemed to be, almost literally, blind as a bat- Angel walked over, placed his hands gently on the man's shoulders, and steered him towards his own slot machine.

"Pops," Angel said, barely even aware of his slight accent- years of 'undercover work' meant that it was almost natural for him to use a false voice when he was in action- as he sat the man down in his old seat, "you won."

Barely even stopping to register the man's reaction, Angel strode off into the machines, hoping that he'd manage to pull this next part of the plan off; he _thought _he could predict her reaction, but, after all, a_ lot_ can change in five years…

_Here goes nothing_, he thought to himself, as he turned in the direction of the bar where he'd last seen Buffy.


	16. The Con is On

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

As he stepped into the security centre, Giles smiled slightly as he studied his new surroundings.

Despite himself, he had to approve of the set-up; even knowing that there were pinhole cameras in the room, he found it hard to actually _see _where they were even knowing what he knew. Despite that, however, the room was empty apart from a large table, which he placed his briefcase on as he adjusted the numbered combination locks, trying to ignore the presence of Parker Abrams beside him- quite frankly, this man just got on his nerves- and opened it, revealing five large, glittering emeralds set in the red velvet.

"They're very beautiful," the man in question said, as he looked curiously at Giles. "A gift?"

Giles just gave him a stare that made it clear he didn't regard this as Abrams' business. Shrugging it off, Abrams turned back to the suitcase and raised an eyebrow as he indicated them.

"Can you lift them out, please?" he asked. Nodding, Giles reached over and lifted the velvet tray out of the case, leaving Abrams and his men to examine the case's interior before Giles replaced the tray once more.

"Alright, Mr. Zerga," Abrams said, looking at him critically, "I acknowledge that the case does not contain any dangerous or illicit material, and I further agree to take custody of your case for a twenty-four hour period to store in our secured vault."

Giles smiled approvingly to himself; no matter what else happened, right now, whatever else happened to him, they had fulfilled his part of the con.

"While I cannot permit you to accompany the case to the vault..." Abrams continued.

"Why not?" Giles interjected, knowing that he needed to play his part in the con for the moment.

"Insurance, for one," Abrams said casually. "Security, another."

Then he narrowed his eyes as he looked at Giles. "And I don't trust you."

At that moment, the casino manager walked into the room, prompting Giles and Abrams to look up as he entered, before leaning in to whisper in his boss's ear.

"I put two plainclothes on Angelus," he said, his voice so low that, if Giles hadn't practiced his hearing in the past, he wouldn't have heard it. "He's at the keno bar now."

At that, Abrams turned back to look at Giles.

"Mr. Zerga, this is Mr. Walsh, my casino manager," he said, indicating the man in question. "If you will allow, he will arrange for your briefcase to be stored inside our vault while you watch on a security monitor."

There was a pause for a moment, as he stared at Giles, and then he spoke again. "Those are my terms; yes or no?"

For a moment, Giles and Abrams simply stared at each other, Giles determined to keep up the 'act' as long as was necessary, and then he smiled and nodded.

"You leave me no choice," he said casually, as he reached over to unlock the cuff from his wrist. Secretly, he was relieved; at least he could keep an eye on the case, which was far more than he'd been expecting to have the chance to do when the plan had first been thought up.

* * *

Meanwhile, outside the room, Connor stood at the door, dressed in a suit and glasses as he stared at the door that Giles and Abrams had just walked through, waiting for Abrams to appear as he tried to shake off his natural nerves at the situation.

"_Deep breaths_," Willow's voice said to him from the earpiece he wore in his right ear; the only means he had of maintaining contact with his others. "_You'll do fine_."

Connor smiled slightly despite himself.

"Thanks," he said to the woman on the other end of the line.

"_No sweat, kid_," Willow said, sounding like she was chuckling slightly herself. "_You're like your dad; when push comes to shove, you're a rock in a tempest. You'll do fine_."

Despite himself, Connor couldn't help but feel a small sense of pride as Willow compared him to his father. Angel may have had problems at actually _being_ there for him when he was growing up, but nobody could deny that he was _very _good at what he did…

Then the joviality vanished from Willow's tone as she spoke to him again. "_Just don't screw up_."

Rolling his eyes anxiously, Connor just continued to stare at the door before him, anxiously flexing his fingers on the briefcase he held clasped in his hands.

* * *

Up in the room, as Willow sat at her control panel, anxiously checking all the security feed she had access to as Oz and Wesley prepared for their roles in the plan- Wesley was already in his suit- there was a knock on the door.

"Room service!" a cheery voice called from the other side, prompting Willow to roll her eyes in frustration; no matter what happened, Faith and Gwen could _never _seem to take anything _totally _seriously.

Even as Wesley glanced through the peephole, he was already reaching over to open the door and usher in the two Raiden sisters, now dressed in waiters' outfits with the room service cart that they'd picked up earlier.

"Who ordered the penne?" Gwen said, grinning casually as she looked around at the others, scratching slightly at the hair that was now tightly bound around the back of her head.

Rolling her eyes, Willow raised her hand as casually as possible, trying to conceal her frustration with their unprofessional manner- she'd wanted to deal with _professionals _when she started working with Angel this time around- and simply nodded at Gwen placed the pasta in question in front of her. Even as Gwen did so, Faith had pulled off the tablecloth to reveal the false-lid cash cart underneath, looking curiously at Wesley for approval.

Nodding briefly in approval, Wesley turned to glance over at where Oz was standing, now dressed in the black skintight outfit that he used for his acrobatic training.

"Are you ready?" he asked, not surprised to receive only a nod from Oz; even when they'd worked together during those brief times when Angel and Buffy had joined forces after their break-up, before his encounter with Veruca, Oz had never been especially talkative. Even now, all he did was nod affirmatively as he walked over to slip himself casually into the empty cash cart, a slim oxygen tank all he had in the way of 'company' as Wesley turned to look at Faith and Gwen.

"Once again, when do you make the deposit?" he said, staring critically at the sisters as they shrugged off their black waiters' costumes in favor of red security guard blazers.

"Not until we get your signal," Gwen said, rolling her eyes slightly as she tightened her tie while looking at him.

"What do we look like, Wes?" Faith asked, looking with a small grin at the man she'd once tortured as she shrugged her jacket on. "A couple of peckerwood jackasses or something? We've _got it under control_; don't you trust us?"

Wesley, Willow and Oz didn't bother to answer; Willow just remained at the screens while Wesley turned back to look at Oz.

"How does it feel?" he asked the young man now squeezed into the container. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Oz said, nodding briefly in reply as he looked up at Wesley.

"Would you care for something to read?" the ex-librarian continued, his voice assuming a slightly teasing tone. "Magazine?"

From the tangle of limbs, a middle finger protruded from the container to show Wesley what he could do with the magazine in question.

Wesley wasn't even slightly offended; he knew that Oz's temper was sometimes strained when he was in these kind of positions, particularly given his occasional fear about getting injured because of his 'condition'.

Of course, when Faith had learned about it, she'd jokingly asked if Oz's problem was that he just wasn't 'getting any' (Out of earshot of the acrobat, of course; even at her worst, she'd never been _that _insensitive to people's feelings, and Oz's illness was a touchy subject even for those who'd known him practically since he was _born_).

"Very well," he said, nodding briefly at the former guitarist as he reached over to take a hold of the lid. "I'm counting down. Thirty minutes of breathing time starts..."

He shut the lid of the container just as he began to pronounce the 'N' of the word "…now."

As Faith placed the tablecloth back on it, the two sisters now fully dressed in their security costumes, Gwen leaned over to snag a quick spoonful of the penne on Willow's left before she walked out of the door with her sister.

"You get no tip!" Willow yelled after the sister in question, but allowing herself a small smile as she turned back to the monitors nevertheless.

* * *

In the room that was the _official _security centre of the Casino- Willow's room, of course, was the _actual _centre these days- the various technicians sat before their monitors, feet kicked up on the control panels as they studied the images on the screen. They barely even seemed to register Giles and Abrams entering the room with the casino manager, although, in all fairness, Abrams barely seemed to register _them _either.

Of course, Giles correctly assumed that the fact that the two men seemed partly asleep and were some way from the door also played its part in their lack of response to his entrance.

"This," the manager said, indicating the room around him with an overly dramatic wave of his hand, "is our security center, where we oversee all gaming in the casino as well as our vault. You'll be able to monitor your briefcase from here."

Giles only nodded briefly at that statement, trying to contain the part of him that felt like laughing when they referred to this place as their 'security centre'. The moment they wanted to, the others could feed false information to this room and nobody would realize it until it was too late…

Glancing at the security men, the manager coughed politely, and the men immediately leapt to their feet, looking awkwardly at the manager. Abrams glanced briefly at his watch, and Giles seized his chance to get rid of his main pain in the neck.

"Don't let me keep you," he said, looking politely at the man whose life he was about to ruin.

"Mr. Zerga," Abrams replied, nodding back at Giles in an equally feigned polite manner before he walked away.

* * *

In the room, Wesley and Willow glanced briefly at each other as they saw Abrams leave the casino, and smiled.

"Connor," Wesley said, activating the secure line to Connor's earpiece. "You're up; good luck."

* * *

Back in the casino, Connor nodded slightly, checked his glasses one more time, and took the few moments necessary to get his breathing under control before Abrams appeared from the doors before him, just as his assistant arrived with the portfolio. As soon as his target had turned toward the restaurant, Connor walked up to stand beside him, handing him the fake card that Wesley and Gunn had managed to piece together as he prepared to introduce himself.

"Mr. Abrams?" he said, looking politely at the man who was now dating the woman who could have, once upon a team, been Connor's biological stepmother (And he _knew _that phrase made no sense on almost every level; he couldn't come up with a better term right now for what Buffy's relationship to him would have been if she'd married his father).

"Yes?" Abrams said, looking at him with a face that suggested he was trying to decide whether he should scrap Connor off his shoe or give him the key to the penthouse suite.

Connor nodded politely and handed him the fake card that Wesley and Gunn had managed to piece together as he prepared to introduce himself.

"Sheldon Wills," he said casually, grateful that they'd at least given him a name that sounded good; if they'd just stuck him something like 'John Smith', he'd have walked out of this before they'd even started. "Nevada Gaming Commission. Could I have two minutes of your time?"

Abrams sighed slightly in frustration, evidently annoyed at having even _more _delays to occupy his time, but shook it off as he turned to look at Connor.

"Of course," he said, in an even voice. "Anything for the NGC."

* * *

From his table in the restaurant, Angel watched as Abrams escorted Connor towards the blackjack tables, allowing himself a small smile of approval at the manner in which Connor was conducting himself. Everything was under control, Connor was refusing to allow the other man to dominate the situation without making it _obvious _that he was in charge, and, in a matter of moments, they'd have the opportunity they needed to get the last piece of the puzzle.

Glancing behind himself once more, Angle chuckled to himself as he saw the plainclothes men turn away in a foolish attempt to act incognito- _mountains _were more inconspicuous than these guys- but his grin faded into a more serious expression as he saw the woman coming around the corner towards the restaurant.

It was Buffy.

_Here goes nothing_, Angel thought to himself as he jumped to his feet, barely remembering to throw a tip on the bar as he walked away from his seat after swallowing the last of his drink.

Time to implement the more… _improvised_ part of the plan.

* * *

As they approached the Pit Boss's station, Connor was already telling Abrams the 'cover story' they'd concocted to explain his presence here.

"It only came to our attention this morning, Mr. Abrams," he explained, trying to sound apologetic for the 'mistake' as he indicated the table where Gunn was currently working. "Apparently he has a record longer than my arm."

"If he is who you say he is…" Abrams said, looking at Connor briefly with an expression that made it clear that things would _not _go well if Gunn was _not _who Connor said he was, and then hailed a pit boss. "Charlie; call over Ramon Escalante."

"Certainly, Mr. Abrams," the man said, nodding as he walked off to the table. As the two of them stood there, waiting patiently, Abrams opened the portfolio, glanced at a piece of paper containing a selection of numbers, skimmed his eyes over it, and then placed it in his pocket.

* * *

Up in the room, Willow and Wesley stared anxiously at the monitors showing the current location of Abrams and Connor, Willow's eyes fixed on the screen showing Abrams' back as he read the paper.

"Did you make it out?" Wesley asked.

"His head blocked the last two numbers," Willow groaned, shaking her head as she activated her microphone to Connor once again. "We missed it, Brood-Junior. You've got to grab the combination yourself."

* * *

Despite his attempts to stay calm, Connor couldn't help but curl his lip slightly in distaste at Willow's new nickname for him- unlike his father, he did _not _spend ages brooding over his criminal past; hell, unlike Angel, he didn't really have _anything _to be 'guilty' for beyond petty theft- prompting a curious glance and a question from Abrams, now looking at his associate with a slightly suspicious air.

"You new at the commission?" he asked, as though simply making polite conversation.

Connor shrugged. "I've been there about two years," he said in an offhand manner.

"I know Hal Lindley over there," Abrams responded, turning to look at Connor critically as he spoke. "You work with him at all?"

For a moment, Connor paused, his mind racing to remember the information Wesley had drummed into him about the NGC before he came down here, and then he just politely shook his head.

"Not since he died last year," he answered, his tone even, taking care not to slip _any _sign of relief when Abrams left it alone, the two of them standing in silence until the pit boss returned with Gunn beside him.

"Mr. Escalante," Abrams said, practically oozing casualness; nobody could guess that he was addressing a man whom he'd just heard was a wanted criminal. "Would you come with us, please?"

"What's this about?" Gunn said, feigning ignorance; only Connor noticed the brief wink the other man gave him as praise for his current acting job.

"I think it's better if we talked off the floor," Abrams said, as he turned around to lead Gunn towards a back door, Connor alongside his colleague in their current heist.

As they passed an elevator, Connor and Gunn took great care not to watch as Faith and Gwen, now dressed in their security guard costumes, walked out of the elevator in question, pushing out the false-lid cash cart containing Oz before them. True, they had to leave a pile of dishes and a tablecloth in the lift behind them, to say nothing of the waiter uniforms, but by the time anyone realsied what that meant, it would be too late.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a restaurant, a maitre d' scoured his reservation list, before glancing up to see David Nabbit approaching in the company of a couple of beautiful young women (Secretly, Nabbit was uncomfortable about this whole thing- he wasn't the type of guy to walk around with a bunch of hot women- but he'd been told that he needed to provide a decent alibi, and this was the only way to _guarantee _he'd attract attention).

"Good evening, Mr. Nabbit," the maitre d' said politely.

"Good evening, Marcel," Nabbit replied, with as cool a formality as he could manage under the circumstances. "These lovely women and I would like a table; we'd just appreciate the chance to spend time somewhere quiet before the fight."

"Of course," the maitre d' said, nodding as he studied the list before him briefly before looking back up. "I can put you at 19 in just a couple minutes."

"Quick as you can," Nabbit said politely, as the maitre d' turned to look at his next customer, who, Nabbit noted without trying to be conspicuous, was Buffy.

Naturally, as the curator of the casino's art museum- not to mention the current 'girlfriend' of Parker Abrams, the owner of this place- she merited a table instantly.

"Good evening, Miss Summers," the man said, smiling broadly at her as he waved one hand. "Right this way..."

Even as Nabbit watched her pass him by towards the table, he was suddenly jolted to the side as a man in a familiar long leather coat brushed by him.

_Angel_? Nabbit asked himself, staring in confusion as his former 'boss' walked past him purposefully. _But why_…?

Glancing behind himself, Nabbit's eyes widened slightly as he saw two large men standing just outside the main entrance to the restaurant, their eyes fixed on Angel's back as he approached Buffy's table.

_Oh dear_… Nabbit thought to himself, as the maitre d' returned to show him to his table. This _doesn't look good…_

* * *

Just as Buffy began to sit down at her table, determined to just relax and enjoy a meal while waiting for Abrams to show up, she glanced up and saw Angel striding towards her, a purposeful expression on his face.

_OK; that's _it, Buffy thought to herself, as she stood up and strode angrily towards her ex.

"Angel: No," she said simply, as she stopped in front of him, trying not to think too much about the fact that she was significantly shorter than he was.

"I'll just be a moment," he replied, staring casually back at her.

"I'm having you thrown out of here," Buffy retorted, as she started to walk past him, only to have him grab her arm. Angrily, she wheeled around and stared at him angrily.

"You're up to something, Angel," Buffy stated, glaring at him critically as she "What?"

Angel opened his mouth to speak, but Buffy raised a finger and interrupted his attempt. "And don't say you came here for me. You're pulling a job, aren't you?"

"Buffy..." Angel began again, looking at her patiently.

"Well, know this," Buffy said, glaring at her ex with a gaze that could have melted steel. "No matter what it is, _you won't win me back_. I-"

"Buffy," Angel said, looking at her with an attempt at a neutral expression on his face, "I just came to say good-bye."

Buffy froze mid-sentence, leaving her only capable of staring in shock at him.

Well… shock mixed in with sadness.

For a moment, she just stared at him, unsure of what to say, until she finally managed to get the words out of her mouth.

"Oh…" she said, as she stared at him. "Then… goodbye… I guess."

"Goodbye," Angel replied softly. He leaned forward slightly, stopping to make sure it was all right that he did this, and, relieved beyond words that she didn't recoil from him, gently kissed her cheek before stepping back, his expression neutral once again.

"Be good," he said simply, his eyes soft and tender with the love he'd always felt for her from the moment he'd first seen her picture on her files, all those years ago…

Then he turned around and headed for the door behind him.

As Angel walked out of the restaurant, his traditional leather duster flapping slightly behind him as he walked, Buffy could only stare after him as he left her life once again. 

Even knowing that he'd done it before, and that she'd actually _wanted _him to leave this time around, didn't make it any easier for her to see him leave.

Reaching up to gently touch her cheek where he'd kissed her, Buffy could only whisper her next words.

"Goodbye, Angel," she said softly.

Even after all he'd put her through, there were tears in her eyes at the thought that she may never see Liam Angelus again.

* * *

No sooner had he walked out the door of the restaurant, just as he was starting to wonder if he'd made a mistake in the previous moment- what if she noticed it early?- Angel found himself walking directly into what looked like the offspring of a human and a rhinoceros, an equally bulky man standing beside him and both looking like they'd be perfectly happy to batter him.

"Mr. Angelus," one of the men said to him, his expression immobile behind his glasses baring the slight satisfied smile. "Mr. Abrams would like to see you."

For a moment, Angel thought about seeing what he could do about fighting them- he hated the idea of just giving in without a fight under _any _circumstances, and it had been a while since he got a chance to practice his moves- but took a quick look at the men and thought better of it. Even if he had actually _wanted _to get away, these men were too big for him to handle on his

"I thought he might," he said, sighing in a resigned manner as the two goons placed their hands on his shoulders and escorted him away. He vaguely registered David Nabbit looking at him in concern, but dismissed it from his mind; Nabbit had only bankrolled them with pre-drawn, unmarked cash, so he didn't have anything to worry about even if things _did _go pear-shaped on them at the last minute (And where _did _that phrase come from anyway?)

_Here we go_, Angel mused, as he was frog-marched through the door to the 'back alleys' of the casino. _The pieces are in play_.

All he could do now was wait to see if they continued to work in his favour.

* * *

Up on the balcony overlooking the restaurant, a tall brunette smiled broadly as Angel was escorted away. She knew that this was only a temporary measure, of course- her inside contact _did _make it clear that this was only some elaborate scheme on Angel's part for reasons she couldn't be sure of- but, still, seeing him be escorted away like that _was _rather sweet.

_And soon, it'll be happening to him all over again_, Lilah smiled, as she watched Angel pass through the door to the back alleyways of the casino.

Plus, of course, once that was done, she'd once again be back with a surprisingly good lay in the form of a certain ex-librarian…


	17. Approaching the Vault

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_  
Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

In the office of the Bellagio's manager, Gunn stood at attention before Connor and Abrams, Abrams sitting behind the desk while Connor leaned back against it, casually placing a beeper on the desk as though it had been annoying him. Trying to ignore Abrams' occasional glances at his watch- he was _going _to do this at _his _rate- Connor began to speak.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Escalante," he said. Gunn simply nodded in response in an off-hand manner, apparently unconcerned at why he'd been called here.

"Or should I call you Mr. Gunn?" he asked, trying to avoid putting the venom into his words that he would have done if he was in this kind of situation in real life; _he _might have done that, but not the character he was currently pretending to be.

Gunn bristled slightly at that, making a good appearance of trying not to let his anger show as Connor pulled out a Xeroxed mug shot and bio of him.

"You _are_ Charles Gunn?" he said, looking critically at his colleague, taking care to keep his tone level. "Formerly of the Tropicana, the Desert Inn and the New York State penitentiary system?"

Gunn, true to the script, remained silent, and Connor spoke again.

"Your silence suggests you don't refute that," he said, as he turned to look at Abrams. "Mr. Abrams, I'm afraid you've been employing an ex-convict. As you know, the N.G.C. strictly forbids..."

"Goddamn cracker…" Gunn muttered under his breath.

Connor paused, genuinely shocked by this; he knew that he and Gunn needed to start a fight, but he couldn't believe Gunn was going to provoke it over something as ridiculously old fashioned like _that_…

Well, he was stuck now; he'd just have to go along with Gunn's chosen means of provoking an argument and hope for the best.

"Pardon me?" he said, looking in confusion at Gunn.

"You heard me," Gunn said, leering back at the son of his old boss. "Just 'cause a black man tries to earn a decent wage in this state…"

"_That_ has _nothing_ to do with-" Connor began, in a voice of feigned outrage that wasn't totally feigned; he had always _hated _racism when he was growing up, and even if he knew Gunn didn't _actually _think that about him, it still hurt to be called one.

"…some cracker cowboy like you's gotta kick him out on the street?" Gunn said, careful to remain sitting as he spoke; he had to be angry, but the kind of angry that left him _still_, not the kind of anger that would make him sit up. "Want me to jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton, but _won't_ let me deal cards… might as well call it _white_jack."

Connor paused for a moment, as though he needed to fully process that- which, of course, was still the case in reality- and then spoke.

"I resent your implication that race has _anything_ to do with this," he said, before he turned to look at Abrams. "Mr. Abrams, I'm sure you know that the Nevada Gaming Commission has _always_ supported the employment of the colored- I mean-" he began, as though trying to correct his error, before Gunn lunged towards him, roaring in rage as he held his hands out in front of him.

This was just the moment that Connor had been waiting for; as soon as Abrams had stepped in to try and separate the two men, Connor's hand dipped into the older man's tuxedo jacket and withdrew the combination for the vault that they were about to rob.

As soon as he saw Connor's hand move back to his pocket, Gunn stepped back, taking deep breaths as though trying to bring himself under control once more.

"OK… Gunn said, taking the occasional deep breath as he glared at Connor, his fists clenched. "OK… I'm cool."

Abrams didn't even bother to look at him; he just turned to look at Connor and raised a critical eyebrow as he studied the young pickpocket.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his tone barely reflecting more than the bare minimum of courtesy required.

Connor didn't even appear to notice it; he just checked himself over briefly, as though making sure he hadn't dropped anything, and then nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said briefly; right now, that was all that needed to be said, as far as the plan was concerned.

* * *

Up in Willow's room, the monitors still blaring brightly in front of them, Wesley and Willow glanced at each other, broad smiles on their faces.

"He's got it," Wesley smiled, as he reached over to pick up his miniature radio. "Gwen, Faith: deliver your package. Connor has the combination."

* * *

Down in the main casino, each one dressed in their 'male' guard disguises, Faith and Gwen exchanged glances, Faith gave the box a reassuring couple of quick taps- their prearranged signal to let Oz know that everything was going according to plan- and then the two of them moved towards the door. As soon as they'd reached it, Gwen reached for her keycard, and swore when she 'failed' to find anything.

"Aw, shit…" Gwen groaned, as she looked over at her disguised sister. "I think… _damnit_, I lost my card!"

The guards at the door exchanged an uncertain look at that comment, before a security officer walked over, looking curiously.

"What's going on here?" the security officer said, looking curiously at the disguised Raiden sisters.

"I think…" Gwen said, continuing to pat herself over anxiously before she finally groaned and gave up. "SHIT! I lost my keycard!"

The security officer didn't need to think too much about it; this kind of mistake could easily get a guard fired, but it was most likely a first-time occurrence, and they were, if anything, already _overstaffed_ tonight, so they could probably spare this one guard for the time he needed.

"OK," he said, nodding at the two sisters. "Leave the cart and go and find it." Glancing over at one of the sentries, he nodded and indicated the cart. "Take this cart inside."

The sentry nodded, pulled out his own keycard, swiped it through the reader, and then entered with the cash cart. Faith and Gwen only hesitated for the moment they needed to wait to watch it enter, and then they were off, both of them grinning in celebration.

The next phase of the plan was complete.

Oz was inside the casino's 'back alleys', on his way to the vault.

Now all they had to do was wait for the next phase of the plan to kick into action…

* * *

Up in the Bellagio Security Centre, Giles allowed himself a small smile as he saw the cart that almost certainly contained Oz being pushed down a corridor, while the guard carrying his briefcase moved down another corridor, both rapidly approaching the main elevator down to the vault.

All in all, things were going almost exactly according to plan.

If only he didn't feel so bloody _nervous _at the moment…

"There it is now," the casino manager said, indicating the briefcase containing his gems on the monitor before him.

If Giles' nerves hadn't started to fail on him, he would have made some sharp retort- it _was _in keeping with the character he'd been developing over the last few days, at least- but as it was, he limited himself to a brief "Wonderful," and hoped that nobody asked him why he was so anxious all of a sudden.

* * *

Up in the hotel room, as they watched Oz's container join up with the briefcase on their way to the vault, Wesley nodded grimly and stood up.

"That's my cue," he said, as he glanced over at Willow while simultaneously reaching into his pockets to pull out a fake pair of glasses. "Call Spike and tell him it'll soon be his time to shine; we need him ready to trigger the pinch in a few minutes, or it's all over."

"Check," Willow said, smiling slightly at the former librarian before she activated her microphone. "How's things at your end, Spike?"

"_I'm there, Red_," Spike's voice muttered at the other end of the line, a casual smirk apparent even in his _voice_. "_Don't worry about it; I'll be ready in time to save your ex from suffocating_."

"_Spike_…" Willow growled under her breath; she had enough problems with her current 'feelings' for Oz as it was without _Spike _rubbing them into her face like that…

"_Just kidding_," the demolitions expert said dismissively. "_I'll call you when I've got everything set up; Spike out_."

With that, the call was terminated, and Willow was left to just sit in the room, staring anxiously at the screens before her and praying that her friends would be all right.

* * *

Outside the room, Wesley, now dressed in a business suit and with thick-rimmed black glasses on his nose, raised a mobile phone to his mouth after dialing a number.

"It's all going according to plan," he said casually as he walked towards the lift. "Give it a few more minutes, and then contact Parker Abrams; Angel and Connor will be too far gone then to get out without anybody catching them."

"_Gotcha_," Lilah Morgan's voice said on the other end of the line, clearly grinning broadly as she sat casually in her office, the phone against her ear. "_Now, are you _sure _you don't want us to deal with the others?_ _All it takes is a single phone call, and they're locked away for a _very _long time…_"

Wesley shook his head as he replied. "_No_, Lilah, I've told you before; I _don't _want them hurt," he said, as he stepped into the lift and pushed the necessary button. "I only want to ruin _Angel's _reputation among the others; everyone else is to be left alone, understand? I've only provided you with evidence that reveals _Angel's _role in things, anyway; you wouldn't have a proverbial leg to stand on if you went after the others."

"_Oh yeah; so you can take control of the group and come up with your _own _plans at last, leaving them blissfully ignorant that you handed the old boss over to us_?" Lilah continued, chuckling at Wesley's attitude once again. "_You know, if I'd known _this_ was all it would take for you to turn against Angel, I'd have tried it long ago…_"

Wesley shrugged.

"It's unlikely it would have worked back then; it took me having some time to myself to realize how much I was wasting my time following _his _orders," he said dismissively, as the lift drew ever closer to the ground floor. "I have to go; I'll see you at the room in a couple of hours, OK?"

"_Check_," Lilah replied, before hanging up the phone.

As the lift doors opened in front of him, Wesley smiled casually.

_Showtime_, he thought grimly, as he stepped out of the lift onto the casino floor.

* * *

In the 'back alleys' of the casino, Gunn, Connor and Abrams finally exited the room that the two 'businessmen' had been questioning Gunn in. As soon as the door was shut, Abrams beckoned two nearby security guards over to him, remaining silent until they were standing on either side of him.

"Please show this man off the premises," he said casually. Then, as the guards moved to stand on either side of Gunn, he turned to glare at the man who he'd only just learned was a former convict.

"Don't step foot in my casino again," he said coldly.

"After _this _treatment?" Gunn retorted, jerking his head at the men behind him. "You couldn't get me back in here if you _paid _me, man."

Of course, Connor and Gunn both knew that there were other reasons behind Gunn's reasons for never returning to the casino- if nothing else, he'd soon be coming into so much money that, properly handled, he'd never really need to work again unless he felt like it- but there was no point mentioning _that_, was there?

As Gunn was led away, Abrams sighed and glanced down at his watch; clearly, Connor noted with some satisfaction, this business had taken up a _significant _amount of his time.

"Mr. Wills," he asked, turning to look at Connor critically, as he indicated the corridor leading to the exit, "if you don't mind..."

"Of course," Connor said casually, turning to face the other man. "Lead on."

As they walked away from the room, Connor carefully counted out the steps he was taking, waiting for the appropriate moment to make his next move; he needed to be far enough away from the office to give him enough opportunities to get away from Abrams' line of sight, but at the same time near enough to the main door that Abrams wouldn't want to go back _himself_…

Finally, after about a hundred steps, Connor patted his pocket and groaned.

"My beeper," he said by way of explanation, looking back at Abrams with a falsely apologetic expression. "I'm sorry; I must have dropped it back in the room."

As the other members of the Eleven had anticipated, Abrams, although torn between his annoyance at getting further behind schedule or his desire not to leave anyone alone in the 'back alleys' of his casino, needed only one glance at the cameras to reassure himself that there wasn't a particular risk at this juncture. Of course, Connor would been prepared to knock the guy out and run for it if he had to, but, naturally, he'd rather _not _go that unless it was absolutely necessary; it would attract too much attention

"You know how to get back out?" the casino owner asked, looking inquiringly over at Connor.

"Of course," Connor said, nodding politely at Abrams as he turned around and began to walk back the way he'd come. "Enjoy the fight!" he called back at the man he was about to ruin, before he rounded a corner and allowed himself a small smile.

He was inside the casino, with the combination codes that would allow him access to the elevators down to the vault itself, and, in a matter of seconds, Willow was going to start the cameras showing what _they _wanted people to see, rather than what was actually _happening_.

_Let's go_, Connor thought to himself, as he began to hurry along the corridor towards the lift to the vault.

* * *

As he sat on the table in the small room the two goons had taken him off to after his little 'meeting' with Buffy in the restaurant- although he wasn't sure if the term was accurate, given how briefly they'd spent talking-, Angel smiled casually at the goons before him.

"How much longer do you think Mr. Abrams will be?" he asked, casually tapping his watch. "For all you know, I might have an appointment."

"Just a few minutes more," the guard replied dismissively. Taking advantage of the silence, Angel's eyes flicked around the room, before he smiled casually and turned back to look at the men before him.

"No cameras in _this_ room, huh?" he said, indicating his surroundings with a brief nod of his head. "Don't want anyone seeing what happens here?" he added casually, hardly surprised when the goons said nothing.

If nothing else, the answer to the question was so obvious that he'd have to have been a complete moron if he'd asked the question with a _serious _desire for it to be answered…

There was silence for a few minutes more, and then Angel glanced at his watch, sighed, and looked back up at the two men.

"He's not coming, is he?" he said dismissively.

The two men looked at each other, and Angel swallowed slightly.

He'd guessed the truth.

Now all he needed to know was the answer to his _next _question.

"Who _is_?" he asked critically.

As soon as the words had left his lips, there was a knock on the door. Turning around, the nearest goon opened the door, revealing a tall man, a few inches taller than Angel, covered in tattoos with extremely well-developed arms. A slight smile was on his face as he studied Angel, but that was the only trace of emotion; his eyes were otherwise cold and hard.

"I guess Mr. Abrams didn't like me talking to his girl?" Angel asked, once again as casual as though he was just dealing with an old friend who'd shown him a picture.

"We're gonna step outside now," the second goon- the one who hadn't responded to Angel's earlier question- said, a small grin on his face as he indicated Angel and the new arrival. "Leave you two alone to… talk things over."

As the goons exited the room, Angel waited until the door had completely shut behind them. Then he sighed, jumped off the table he'd been sitting on, opened his mouth to speak…

Only for the other man to punch him in the face.

"AH!" Angel groaned, clutching at his suddenly-sore mouth as he glared critically back at the other man. "God, Xander, we'll get to the 'hitting me' part of the plan _later_, remember?"

Xander Harris, Angel and Buffy's former ally back in the days when they'd each had their own detective agencies, shrugged dismissively as he looked at the ex-private detective.

"Yeah, I know; I just wanted to get one in now so I know what sound you make for imitation purposes," he said, casually wiping the faint trickle of blood on his hand off as he looked at his old 'friend'.

Of course, Angel knew that there was more to it than that- Xander may have come to accept Angel's relationship with Buffy, but he'd made it clear time and again that he didn't _like_ it, and probably regarded this as one of those rare opportunities when he actually got to vent his frustration from that time.

After getting out of prison, Angel had done some independent checks on those members of the 'old group' who he wasn't recruiting for the current heist; Xander, he'd been surprised to note, doubled up as a construction worker/ carpenter and the occasional hired muscle for those occasions when businesses needed somebody who was good at heavy work. After discovering that Xander was currently 'stationed' in Vegas, Angel had contacted him about the plan, offering him a couple of million dollars if he could ensure that Abrams hired _him _for any 'bruiser work' that had to go on during this particular heist.

"Eh, no big deal," he said, shrugging it off dismissively as he spat out a last speck of blood and looked curiously at Xander. "How's the wife- Anya, wasn't it?"

"Oh, she's just pregnant… _again_," Xander responded, sighing in frustration as he studied the gold ring on his hand. "It's just a good thing we got most of the money from those crime families we take down…"

"Hold on; she's pregnant _again_?" Angel said, a broad smile crossing his face despite the situation. "You know, it's those details that leave me wondering what the hell your wife has against bunnies; the fixation she seems to have with sex, you'd almost think she was _part _bunny herself!"

"Yeah, I know; I've thought that myself on a few occasions," Xander said, chuckling to himself as he reached over to grab a nearby chair. "Anyway, shall we do this thing?"

"Please," Angel said, nodding gratefully as Xander dragged the chair over to under the room's air vent. "Let's get this over with; the sooner we're done here, the better."

* * *

Up in her room, currently alone as she studied the monitors before her, Willow watched eagerly as the video monitor displaying the vault revealed the vault doors opening to expose the container holding her ex-boyfriend, Giles' case in the hands of the man beside him. As she watched, the container was wheeled into the 'holding area' for it and similar containers in the centre of the room, the guard turned around to walk out of the vault…

And then the other guard placed Giles' briefcase on top of the container with Oz inside it.

"Oh crap..." Willow whispered to herself, as she stared at the sight before her.

She may have faith in Oz's acrobatic abilities, but he wasn't expecting something like _this _to take place when he opened the container lid; if he opened the lid with that case on it right now, the case would fall off, land on the floor, trigger the motion sensors…

And then, it would be game over before it had even started.

* * *

Back in the Bellagio security centre, his eyes fixed on the monitors, Giles witnessed this as well. He barely managed to stifle his instinctive curse at this unexpected turn of events- the evening had just become _significantly _more complicated- but, at the same time, there was nothing any of them could do to alert Oz to this new occurrence.

"Does that satisfy you, Mr. Zerga?" the security manager asked, glancing over at Giles.

"Yes, I'm…" Giles swallowed, once again cursing his ulcer- in his current state, the bloody thing had been causing even _more _havoc – and continued, "…very satisfied.

Fortunately, the manager didn't appear to notice his somewhat shaky condition; his attention was more focused on the vault doors that were presently being sealed shut on the monitor before him.

As the door shut before him, Giles cursed his health once more. He was beginning to sweat from the stress, his mouth was so dry that he couldn't even manage to swallow, and he kept on having to stop himself from patting his pockets to search for his medication without actually managing to find anything.

If he didn't get out of here soon, he'd have a _serious _problem on his hands…

* * *

Down in the casino 'back alleys', Connor walked casually through the corridors, his eyes flicking back and forth for guards as he made his way towards the elevator doors.

True, he'd already taken the opportunity to memorize the keypad combination on his way there, which at least might add that little extra bit of credibility to his presence if somebody walked in on him as he entered the code, but he'd still rather get this over and done with as soon as possible…

* * *

As she stared at the cameras around the vault, Willow smiled in relief as she saw Connor come around the corner, his posture as casual as though he did this sort of thing any day of the week.

If he'd been anybody else's son, she would have called it arrogance.

But this was _Angel's _son, and she knew what he and his father could do if they put their minds to it; with that in mind, his attitude wasn't arrogance, but merely confidence in his own abilities.

"Almost there, Brood-Boy…" Willow muttered to herself, staring anxiously at the screen before her, her fingers hovering anxiously over the keypad.

In a moment or two, the time would come for her to do her thing once more…

Glancing over at the monitor displaying the control room itself- Abrams was almost _ridiculously _paranoid about his security, in Willow's opinion- Willow's eyes widened in shock as she saw Connor displayed on the monitor showing the inside of the lift, in full view of everyone looking at the screen. 

"_Who's that_?" the floor manager said…

Just at the same moment Giles flung out his hands and grabbed the metal railing before him, his face twisting in agony as his grip on the railing tightened.

If Willow hadn't know about the plan, even _she _would have believed that Giles was having a heart attack.

As it was, as he collapsed to the ground, successfully distracting everyone's attention from the monitors, Willow could only smile casually as she tapped the necessary keys on the keyboard before her.

"Going to video…" she muttered grimly, "…_now_."

With that, down in the control room, the security monitors showing the lift, which had shown Connor standing in them only moments ago, now showed nothing but an empty lift, recorded by Willow exactly twenty-four hours previously; even if anyone looked carefully at the clocks in the lift, they wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

With that, Willow sat back casually in her seat, staring at the monitors with a satisfied smile on her face, and waited for her next moment of glory to come up.

* * *

As he stood inside the elevator, glancing around him one last time to make sure the camera had been rerouted, Connor smiled casually as he tossed his briefcase off to one side.

It hadn't been easy making Abrams believe his cover story, but he'd pulled it off.

Shrugging off his long coat, he reached up the elevator's ceiling and ripped down its panel to reveal a trap door. Connor was just reaching up to pull down the trap door when a hand yanked it open from above…

Revealing the casually-grinning form of Connor's father squatting over the lift entrance as he grinned casually at Connor.

"You didn't _really_ think I was gonna sit this one out, did you?" he asked, apparently unconcerned about the shocked expression on his son's face.

"What, didn't you _trust_ me?" Connor yelled up at his father. He knew he'd tried to teach himself _not _to place too much importance on his father's opinion in a situation, but, after he'd come so far on his own, to suddenly have Angel show up like this…

Angel, however, seemed unconcerned about the inner turmoil; he just smiled reassuringly at Connor, a slightly apologetic expression on his face for his actions.

"I always did, Connor," he said, as he crouched down before the hatch and offered his son his hand. "I just now have proof that my trust wasn't misplaced."

For a moment, the two men stared at each other, Connor in uncertainty and Angel in hope, until, finally, Connor nodded in resolution, took his father's hand, and allowed himself to be helped up to the roof of the elevator.

* * *

Even as the father and son team prepared for their descent into the casino, the action was continued to develop above them. In the MGM Grand Arena, the crowds were settling down into their seats, Abrams and Buffy taking their pre-saved ringside seats as David Nabbit settled himself in around the middle of the audience, the two women sitting on either side of him. Anxiously glancing at his watch, Nabbit noted that, if everything was going according to plan, Connor should be about to descend into the vault, Giles was presently having his 'heart attack', and Spike was preparing to set off the pinch.

Nabbit had to admit, he was looking forward to seeing how the last one would affect this _particular _confrontation that was about to unfold before him…

"Ladies and gentlemen!!" the announcer yelled from the middle of the ring, breaking Nabbit's train of thought and forcing his mind back onto the matter at hand.

He could worry about the plan in private; right now, he had to look as though he was fully occupied with watching the fight.

* * *

Inside the casino itself, as the guards looked anxiously at each other following the call they'd just received- something about a medical emergency in the monitor room- a man in his late twenties to early thirties walked out from among the slot machines towards the cage door.

"Someone called for a doctor?" 'Doctor' Wesley Wyndham-Pryce asked casually, managing to restrain the broad grin he felt on the inside as he approached his particular contribution to the final stages of the plan.

In a matter of minutes, everything would come to a head, and he'd know whether the risks he'd taken here had been worth it.

* * *

Back in the elevator shaft leading to their current target, Angel and Connor were preparing for the raid. As the father and son team of thieves crouched above the only elevator that would take them down to the vault, Angel shrugged off his jacket and shirt, exposing the

"How'd you get here?" Connor asked his father as Angel shrugged the rappelling line off his shoulders.

"Crawlspace," Angel said dismissively, indicating a nearby vent. "And I had to give away a couple of my millions to an old friend."

"But what about-" Connor spluttered indignantly, even as he shrugged off his own suit to prepare for the upcoming descent. "I mean, that whole thing with Wesley…"

Angel just smiled casually at his son, even as his mind flashed back to that particular conversation.

He and Wesley had known that Connor resented his small role in the overall plan, but, at the same time, they couldn't come up with a plausible reason to put Connor- a relative newbie to this kind of 'long con'- on the spot like that without making it look as though Angel was doing the one thing he'd promised _not _to do; showing favoritism to Connor just because he was Angel's son.

Then Buffy's presence had been revealed to the group, and Angel had come up with the perfect means of incorporating that into his plan _and _allow Connor the chance to play a more important role in the heist.

By deliberately jeopardizing his role in the plan- the odds of _nobody _seeing his 'confrontation' with Buffy in the restaurant were slim to none, given all the cameras Abrams had in his casinos- Angel had ensured that he _couldn't _play his original role in the plan, and, with everybody else already accounted for, the group would have been 'forced' to select Connor as his replacement.

As far as Angel and Wesley could see, nobody was the loser in that new plan; Connor would get to play a more important role in the plan than just the observer, Angel would get to see his son in action, and the group as a whole would begin to accept that Connor was involved in the heist because of his own merits as a pickpocket, rather than just because he was the son of the plan's originator.

(OK, that last one admittedly wasn't an _actual _problem for the group as a whole- none of them had a problem with Connor joining their team for the heist- but the point nevertheless stood; this was the only way Angel could come up of allowing Connor the chance to show his own talents without significantly altering the original plan at the last minute.)

"But… Connor stuttered, bringing Angel's thoughts back to the present as he looked at his confused son, "why'd you make me go _through_ all this? Why not just _tell_ me?"

Angel just smiled casually as his son.

"Well, where's the fun in that?" he asked nonchalantly, as though he was just asking Connor for his opinion on something they'd seen on television recently- this wasn't the time or place to go into full detail about his reasons for 'swapping places' with Connor- before indicating the edge of the elevator. "C'mon: Oz only has about three minutes of air left before he's in trouble."


	18. Into the Vault

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

_Other Requirements:  
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something. _

All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)

Angel's Eleven

Even as he glanced at his watch to confirm that Angel and Connor were already on their way to their position above the elevator- the plan had gone swimmingly so far, and he had no reason to presume there were any other problems- Wesley was hurriedly examining Giles' unconscious body, pressing his ear against Giles' chest to check his heart and the breath coming from his old colleague's mouth…

Then, pulling back, Wesley sighed and lowered his head, praying that his basic acting skills were up to the task that had been given to him.

"He's gone," he said simply as he looked back up at the casino staff around him. He had only just stood up when he heard the door open behind him, and smiled slightly as he turned to look at the new arrivals; two paramedics pushing a stretcher.

"You're too late," he said simply, trying to make his voice show regret even as he gave them a brief, approving wink. "He's dead."

Groaning, the disguised Gwen- the two Raiden sisters made surprisingly convincing men once some facial padding and some illusionary five-o'-clock shadow were added- turned to look at Faith in frustration.

"I_ told _you to hurry," she said, slapping her 'colleague' on the arm as she rolled her eyes. "Can't you _ever _go a bit faster?"

As he turned around to help them load Giles' body unto the stretcher, Wesley was already counting out the time left available to them if this was going to work. If everything went according to plan, Angel, Connor and Oz would be inside the vault in approximately ten minutes…

And, after that, the time would be right for him to call Lilah and have her pull the plug on his 'friend's' heist.

* * *

As the two of them attached their grappling hooks to the bars above the elevator, Angel smiled casually as a thought occurred to him and he glanced over at his son.

"Who do you like tonight?" he asked, as casually as though he'd just been having a bear with his son rather than facing the prospect of breaking into the most secure vault in history.

"Huh?" he asked, looking at his father in confusion.

"Tyson or Lewis," Angel explained, by way of clarification.

"The fight?" Connor said, looking in surprise at his father; clearly, he couldn't quite believe that Angel was thinking of the fight as they were about to find themselves facing what had to be the most elaborate heist ever arranged in history…

But, on the other hand, it did give him something to think about beyond what would happen if _anything _went wrong.

"Lewis," he said after a moment's pause.

Angel shot him a look.

"You like Tyson?" Connor asked casually, a slight teasing grin spreading across his face as his father nodded. "How strongly do you feel about it?"

"You looking for action?" Angel retorted, a similar grin spreading across his face as he looked back at his son.

"I'd go in for a buck," Connor said, shrugging casually; he was prepared to bet some minor money, given how much free cash they'd have available to them when this job was over, but he wasn't going to go nuts over something that _trivial_.

"A buck it is," Angel replied, before he finished attaching his grappling line and glanced down at the shaft below them, infrared lines criss-crossing all the way down.

"Willow," Angel said, raising his left hand to tap his earpiece as Connor finished getting into position, "we're set."

* * *

Inside the casino, Wesley raised his own phone to his ear as he and the Raidens wheeled Giles' 'body' through the corridors on the stretcher.

"Willow, we're set," he said simply, unintentionally echoing Angel's voice.

* * *

Up in her hotel room, Willow smiled grimly as she heard her old friends informing her that they were ready. She'd been starting to get worried; they were rapidly approaching the moment when Oz's air canister would run out, and if he didn't get out of the container _soon _he'd end up breathing carbon dioxide.

OK, so the briefcase posed another problem; right now, Willow was more concerned about the continued well-being of her ex.

"Spike," she said, activating her own phone. "We're set."

"_Just give me a minute_," the demolition expert said on the other end; Willow heard a vague clunk in the background, and guessed that he was finishing attaching the pinch to the top of his van.

"We don't _have _a minute," Willow yelled over the microphone, trying to contain her fear even as she watched the clock count down towards the moment when Oz would have no more air available. "Oz is going to pass out in _thirteen seconds_!"

"_Then give me thirteen seconds_!" Spike groaned in frustration, before there was a brief whistling of air- it sounded like he was jumping a short distance- followed by a short thump as his feet hit the ground and subsequent silence as the call was terminated at Spike's end.

Swallowing anxiously, Willow glanced back at the monitors before her, noting with a slight smile that the fight was about to start on one of them; she'd tapped into one of the ring's security cameras to help her keep a more direct eye on Buffy and Abrams. As the opening bell rang, prompting the two fighters to move out into the field, Willow couldn't stop feeling a brief twinge of satisfaction upon seeing that Buffy shifted slightly _away _from Abrams as she watched the fight; she'd been good at hand-to-hand back in the day, but she'd never liked _watching _it…

And, when Buffy had been forced to just _watch _people in a fight, she'd always gone to _Angel_ for comfort.

If Willow needed any further proof that Buffy didn't _actually _care about Abrams, she'd just got it; Buffy didn't go to him for reassurance.

* * *

As Connor glanced down the elevator shaft below him, anxiously preparing to let go as soon as the beams shut down, a thought occurred to him and he looked back at his father.

"You ever rappelled before?" he asked.

"Never really came up," Angel replied. "You?"

"Nope," Connor said, shaking his head. "Not much call for heights when you're picking pockets."

If the situation had been better, Angel might have made a comment about him finally being present for one of his son's 'firsts', but decided against it; this was no time to make comments like that when Connor was probably still a little annoyed that Angel was even _here _in the first place…

* * *

As she stared anxiously at the timer before her, Willow could only cross her left fingers behind her back, hoping and praying that she'd get the call she was waiting for before everything went to hell…

"_Ready_," Spike's voice said over the line; if Willow had been younger and in her more 'hetero' phase (And if Spike had actually been in the room with her, of course), she would have kissed him.

"Then _hit it_!" she yelled, staring anxiously at the timer before her; they only had a _second _before Oz lost the last of his oxygen.

She heard a brief 'click' over the line, and suddenly, as she turned around to look at her window, the entire Strip suddenly went dark, the lights turning off as though a massive shroud was suddenly being draped over the city before her. Whole blocks of lights disappeared, casinos practically vanished into the darkness, Willow's monitors powered down (She briefly wished she'd been able to find some way to protect herself from that, but short of lead-lining the room there was really nothing that she could think of)…

* * *

And, inside the elevator shaft, the infrared sensors automatically shut down as the power was cut off.

"_Now_!" Angel yelled, as he and Connor dropped a couple of glowsticks to the ground before following them, releasing their lines as they hurtled down towards the ground, Angel mentally counting the seconds they had before the sensors activated…

Then the cords reached their end and rapidly halted, sending Angel and Connor briefly 'bouncing' upwards.

"Aaaaahhhhh!" Connor yelled as loud as he dared; evidently, his straps had been a _bit _tight between his trousers. Unable to halt long enough to offer his son his apologies, Angel pulled a slim blade out of his pocket and rapidly slashed at the two cords, sending him and Connor falling to the ground as the cords flew back upwards, the two lines reaching the top just as the sensors turned themselves back on.

* * *

As her monitors turned back on, Willow couldn't stop herself from grinning slightly as she saw Benedict staring in shock at the scene before him; apparently, with the lights terminated, Lewis and Tyson had decided to just struggle at close range rather than actually try to _box _with an opponent they couldn't even see.

As Abrams looked around incredulously at what had just taken place, Willow chuckled gratefully; they'd barely even started the actual _heist_, and already their target had been both literally and metaphorically 'in the dark'…

She could only hope that things would continue to go downhill for him from there as the plan continued.

* * *

Back in the elevator shaft, Connor and Angel had already regained their footing after the fall, quickly checking themselves over for any injuries; a couple of light bruises, but nothing serious.

"You alright?" Connor asked his father.

Angel shrugged nonchalantly.

"Been better," he said simply, as he indicated the door before them. "Get the gear; we've got a door to blow."

* * *

Inside the vault, as the lights turned back on, the false lid of the cash cart moved slowly upwards, Oz having finally passed his limit and desperate to acquire some fresh air…

He heard something move slightly on the lid, and froze.

If that wasn't Giles' briefcase, he would be _very _surprised.

Glancing at the narrow crack before him, Oz sighed slightly in relief, both at the fresh air being let into the case and at the handcuff chain visible in front of him. It would require split-second timing, but if he moved fast…

He didn't hesitate; in one swift move, he raised the lid of the case with one hand and grabbed the chain in the other, halting the case before it could go far enough to trip the now-active alarm systems.

Sighing in relief, Oz began to work his way out of the case.

* * *

Back up in her room, Willow smiled slightly in relief as she saw Oz deal with the issue of the case before she heard the door open behind her.

"Are they in?" Gunn asked as he entered the room, now dressed in casual clothes rather than his blackjack outfit.

"Just a few more seconds…" Willow said, before she looked back curiously at her new friend. "By the way, I thought you got kicked out?"

Gunn shrugged.

"When the lights go out, people don't really pay attention to who's coming _in_," he explained simply.

"Ah," Willow said simply, before she turned back to the monitors before her, quickly pressing _Play _to activate a video. As Gunn watched one of the monitors- showing the overhead security camera view of the corridor before the vault, with three guards, all holding Uzis, standing idly in front of it- flickered briefly before clearing to show the same guards in different positions.

"This tape's from last night," Willow explained, smiling casually as Oz clambered out of the case; at least she didn't have to worry about _that _part of the plan any more. "Same guards, same shift. Simple enough, really."

"Uh… wouldn't the staff notice the camera shift?" Gunn asked, looking in confusion at the hacker. "Something like that seems kinda hard to miss…"

"With _that _mess going on?" Willow asked, laughing slightly as she indicated another monitor that showed the casino floor; right now, it seemed like everybody at the gambling tables had taken advantage of the darkness to try and sneak themselves some extra chips, or pretend to throw the dice while getting them in a position that they could use. "They've got _far _more to concern themselves with than a few guards moving about a bit."

As she turned her attention back to the monitor that showed the _actual _image feed from the cameras, noting the elevator doors slowly opening that vital few inches as Angel and Connor moved into the next phase of the plan. As she and Gunn watched from the room, the father-and-son team hurled a couple of gas pellets into the corridor before them, waiting just the few seconds required for the gas to take effect and knock its targets out, sending them crashing to the ground in a deep sleep.

* * *

As the two of them finally climbed out of the elevator shaft- after spending three years of his life in prison, Angel preferred not to remain in small spaces unless he had to- neither Angel nor Connor could stop themselves from instinctively holding their noses with one hand as they waved the gas before them out of their way; it wouldn't do them any good to lose even the _slightest _concentration at this stage of the heist.

"You think Oz made it out okay?" Connor asking, looking anxiously over at his father.

Angel shrugged.

"I'm sure he's fine," he said nonchalantly, before he indicated the door in front of him. "You're up."

Nodding, Connor walked up to the door and punched in the code that he'd recently acquired from Abrams. As he watched, the door slid open, revealing the nigh-on impregnable sight of the main vault door behind it, clearly composed of several inches of solid metal.

Despite himself, Connor couldn't help but be impressed.

"Jesus…" he whispered, as he stared at the door.

"Indeed," Angel said, nodding grimly as he studied the door in front of him. "Now then, there's an HIV-positive acrobat with a hundred sixty million dollars behind this door, who is _very _anxious to be let out; I say we help him to do so."

With that, Angel reached out and slapped one flat hand on the door as hard as he could.

* * *

Inside the vault, Oz raised his head as he heard a faint thump from the door behind him, and smiled slightly; evidently his associates had finally reached their target. Casually pocketing the faux 'emeralds' that had been in Giles' case, Oz turned to briefly study the gap between the cases and the shelves, made a couple of quick mental calculations to estimate how his hand would affect the situation, and then turned around to prepare for the jump.

* * *

Up in the room, Willow and Gunn could only stare anxiously at the monitors before them, Willow keeping her fingers crossed as she stared at her ex about to take the pivotal leap in his part of the plan.

"Five says he shorts it," Gunn said briefly.

"No bet," Willow retorted grimly; the stakes were just too high for her to even be _thinking _about stuff like that.

As she watched the screen before her, she crossed her fingers anxiously as her former boyfriend prepared for the leap, crouch, halt for a moment, and then leap across the room…

Only for him to hit the edge of the shelf before him, nearly falling off the shelf; if he hadn't managed to automatically grab the edge of the shelf with the soles of his feet, he would have hit the floor and given the entire heist away.

"_Phew_…" Willow sighed, as she stared in relief at the scene on the monitor in front of her as Oz clambered back onto the shelves in front of him. "That was _too _close."

"Tell me about it," Gunn muttered grimly. "We'd better get that money out of here _soon_…"

* * *

Unaware of the close call that the entire team had just suffered, Angel and Connor stood outside the door, casually studying his watch as he waited for Oz to get into position. Finally, after a few moments' silence, Angel nodded and slapped the door again, smiling slightly as a responding slap was heard on the other side.

"We're on," he said, smiling casually back at his son. "Get the explosives set up; we're moving in soon."

* * *

Back up in the hotel room, Willow and Gunn briefly glanced around as the door behind them opened, only relaxing when they saw Spike walk through the door, a cigarette between his lips.

As they turned back to the monitor in front of them, Gunn's head tilted slightly to the side as Angel began to unravel several wires connected up to a detonator he'd kept in his pocket.

"That's it?" Gunn asked, looking skeptically over at the young red-headed bisexual. "Would have thought this would've been a bit more… difficult, I guess."

"There's still the five pins and the floor sensor," Willow explained, as she pulled up two different images on the screen before her, one showing Oz's side of the vault while the other showed Angel and Connor. "Not much we can do about that from the Great Brooding One's side of the door, but as for Oz's side…"

"Just a little bit of Semtex should do the trick," Spike explained, as he walked up to stand beside his friends. "Everything going OK?"

"Bit of a close call when he jumped, but nothing serious," Willow replied, as she continued to tap away at her keyboard. "We should be in soon; I just need to make sure everything's ready for afterwards…"

As Willow made the last little tweaks to a previously-installed program, her eyes remained fixed on the main monitor as Oz set the last of the faux emeralds into its place on the door before him, affixing the detonator receiver to the emerald before slapping the door once more to indicate that he was ready. As Angel responded on the other side of the vault with two slaps of his own, he stepped back, the detonator in his hand and the wires now connected up to the vault door.

"_Counting down from twenty…_" he said over the audio feed as he glanced at his watch, "_now_."

As the words reached her ears, Willow smiled slightly in relief, but the smile faded as Oz's attempts to move away were halted by his bandaged hand remaining fixed in position near one of the bombs.

"Oh, _bugger_," Spike groaned as he stared at the scene on the monitor in front of them. "_That's _not good…"

"Ya think?" Gunn retorted, staring in increasing anxiety at the screen as Oz desperately tugged at his hand; how the _hell _the dude wasn't falling to the floor at the moment Gunn could not figure out.

"Connor, can you read me?" Willow yelled into her microphone, praying that she'd manage, by some fluke, to get through all the metal walls surrounding her friends and blocking off any unauthorized radio signals. "Connor, if you can hear me, _don't _blow that door… _don't blow the door, you're about to kill Oz_!"

"_Three_…" Angel continued, as Connor continued to tug at his bandage. "_Two_… _one_…"

He pressed the detonator…

Willow closed her eyes, not wanting to see the first person she'd ever loved get blown to smithereens…

Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes to confirm it, and was shocked to see that the door was still standing. Oz was now creeping away from the door, having finally managed to free his bandage from the explosive, but, other than that, the scene was unchanged.

"_What's wrong_?" Connor said, his voice still visible over the monitor's audio feed.

"I don't know…" Angel mused, studying the detonator in his hand curiously. "_It all _seems _OK_…"

"_Did you check the batteries_?" the younger man asked casually.

Spike couldn't help himself.

He burst out laughing.

"The _batteries_?" he yelled, a grin so wide that it threatened to split his face as he stared at the screen before him. "The great poof goes to all that effort, and he forgot to change the sodding _batteries_?"

"Who forgot to change the batteries?" Giles asked as he walked into the room, now out of his suit and back in his more familiar tweed jacket and trousers.

"_Long_ story…" Willow said, a relieved smile on her face as she watched Angel remove the batteries from the detonator and toss them aside in disgust as Connor checked his own pockets for replacements.

"_You know_," the young man said over the speakers, his grin evident as he handed the batteries over to his father, "_you lose focus for _one second_ in this game_-"

"_-And some_one gets hurt, yeah yeah," Angel retorted, as he took the batteries and placed them back in the detonator. "_Y'know, I don't hear_ Oz _complaining about it; just leave _me _alone to deal with this, OK_?"

With that, Angel slapped the door once more- Oz, now positioned on the far side of the room, ducked out of the line of fire to crouch on one of the shelving units off to the side- and Angel activated the detonator.

* * *

As soon as his finger touched the button, Angel heard the satisfying sound of multiple muffled booms on the other side of the vault door, as the faux emeralds, their task fulfilled, exploded.

As soon as the sound of the explosions had faded, Connor, a resolved expression on his face; if Angel wasn't going to show any hesitation, he'd be damned if he was going to do any himself. He stepped up to the door, placed his hand on the handle, and pulled it open, revealing crumbled cash carts, fallen shelves, and blackened but otherwise unmarked boxes of money.

"Damn…" Connor whistled as he studied his surroundings.

"Precisely," Angel agreed, as he walked in behind his son. "Hey, Oz?"

As soon as the words had crossed the former detective's lips, one of the damaged shelves in front of them lifted up, revealing Oz crouched underneath it, looking casually at his friends.

"You took your time," he said simply.

Angel shrugged.

"We had a slight hold-up; the batteries were dead," he explained. "C'mon; let's get this over with."

* * *

Meanwhile, out in the main casino, Wesley, standing alone by a slot machine, glanced at his watch, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number.

"He's in," he said, as soon as the phone had picked up. "Call Abrams and let him know; just remember, they're to take out _Angel_, but let everybody else escape without making it _obvious_."

"_You have my word, Wes_," Lilah Morgan said on the other end of the line. "_They'll lose the money, but the kid and the acrobat get out intact, you'll come away with a few million in a couple of bags that were 'lost' during transportation, and your former 'boss'_?"

She chuckled slightly as she spoke. "_Well, he _definitely _won't be getting out of jail _this _time around if we can help it_…"

Wesley nodded grimly.

"Excellent," he said simply.

With that, he terminated the call, sealing more than one person's fate for the remainder of the evening.


	19. Leaving the Vault

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

Angel's Eleven

As they sat in their hotel room, Willow, Gunn, Giles and Spike watched with broad grins on their faces as the first wave of bills was tossed onto the vault floor, Angel, Connor and Oz rapidly gathering up everything they could get their hands on.

It had been a difficult struggle to get to this point- and the next part of the plan was unquestionably going to be the riskiest bit, but, if it all paid off, it was _definitely _going to be worth it.

"Ever been in love?" Giles asked, breaking the silence as he stared at the screen.

Tilting his head to one side in a reflective manner, Gunn paused for a moment before he answered his friend's query.

"No… I guess not," he said finally, a somewhat dejected tone in his voice. "Not _really_…"

"Trust me," Giles said, a slight smile on his face as he looked at Gunn. "The only thing better than this is finding the _perfect _someone to love."

"Amen to that…" Willow said softly as she studied the screen, her chin in her hand as she watched her ex-boyfriend take the casino's money off its shelves.

* * *

Back at the location of the fight arena, Lewis and Tyson having resolved the confrontation to everybody's satisfaction despite the initial complications caused by the blackout, Parker Abrams had just walked out of the arena, Buffy walking beside him, when Abrams' phone rang in his pocket.

Rolling his eyes in frustration, Abrams reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone, automatically flipping it open as he raised it to his ear.

"Yes?" he inquired critically.

"_Hello there, Mr Abrams_," the familiar voice of Lilah Morgan said on the other end of the line. "_Just thought you might want to know that you're being robbed blind as we speak_."

* * *

As Lilah sat nonchalantly in her hotel room, she grinned maliciously as she studied the monitors that she'd had her remaining staff (Most of the others had quit after Angel destroyed their office) study the monitors that they'd set up on Wesley's instructions. The set-up wasn't quite as elaborate as what Willow had created in her room, but given that it was only intended to tap into Willow's pre-existing link to the system rather than do anything to the main casino systems itself, that didn't really matter.

Besides, thanks to them tapping into Willow's signal, they not only had access to al the cameras, but also had complete control of what _she _was making the cameras show… plus, of course, they had access to the secret camera Lilah had asked Wesley to install in the room itself.  
Looking at Willow and her group as they eagerly watched the screen showing their 'team' shoving the vault's money into the bags that they'd subsequently have Abrams remove, the ultimatum being that he either take the money out now or they'd blow all of it up and he'd lose everything.

_Clever little scheme_, Lilah admitted to herself as she heard Abrams enter the monitoring room over the phone that she still held in her hand. _Of course, thanks to Wes it was never _going _to succeed, but still, pretty clever_.

If it wasn't for the memory of what Angel had done to some of her colleagues, she might have actually let him go through with it just to see him in action once again.

As Abrams' voice began to bark out orders over the phone, Lilah forced her attention back to the matter at hand; as appealing as it was to contemplate Angel's fate when he was discovered this time around, she had to ensure that those circumstances would actually _happen_ before she allowed herself the luxury of fantasizing.

"_Miss Morgan_?" Abrams' voice said over the phone, sounding slightly smug as he spoke to her. "_Your concern for me is appreciated, but I can assure you that my casino vault is fine_."

"Really?" Lilah said, nodding over at one of her staff as she spoke. "Just a sec…"

Despite her best intentions, she was unable to stop herself sneaking a quick look at the screen showing Miss Rosenberg's room, smiling broadly at the shocked expressions on their faces as the image Willow was broadcasting was replaced by the _real _image.

"_What the sodding _Hell?" Spike yelled, staring in confusion at the hacker. "_What the hell are you _playing _at, Red_?"

"_I-I don't know_!" Willow protested, as she stared in confusion at the screen before her, desperately trying to reestablish the feed even though she knew it was too late. "_I-it's like somebody's using my own link _against _us_!"

If it wasn't for the fact that she hadn't installed a two-way speaker system- and the fact that she couldn't guarantee they'd stay there if they _knew _somebody was tampering with the system-, she might have been tempted to let them know that somebody was _deliberately _interfering with the signal.  
Shaking her head, Lilah turned her attention back to the phone, smiling slightly at Abrams' shock on the other end.

"That's the thing about this town; it doesn't take much to change your luck in a moment," she said casually. "Now then, unless you want to _lose _that money, you'll do exactly what I tell you."

"_Which is_?" Abrams asked, sounding like he wanted desperately to punch the messenger who'd delivered this bad news to him.

"As you may note, they're only packing about half the money you've got down there- which, given the amount you commonly have in these places on times like this, comes to probably around seven hundred and fifty million dollars," Lilah explained, smirking slightly as one of her team showed her the amount that was currently stored in the vaults on his screen; she vaguely registered that it was somewhat higher than she'd guessed- around $163,156,759, to be precise- but that didn't matter. "If things had gone according to plan, they would have tapped your lines, sent in a fake SWAT team, and moved all the cash out while _you_ were left thinking that things had been blown up."

"_I… _see" Abrams said, his voice cold and inquisitive as he spoke into the phone. "_May I inquire as to how _you _are so 'well-informed' about this little scheme_?"

"Let's just say I had inside information and leave it at that," Lilah said, narrowly stopping herself from chuckling slightly as she recalled exactly _where _her 'inside information' had come from in the first place. "Now then, you have two options; either call the SWAT team and get your cash nicked, or call _my _private security force and be _sure _of getting your cash back."

"_Private security team_?" Abrams stated skeptically.

"Hey; it's the only communication line that I can _guarantee _you hasn't been tapped by these guys," Lilah said, grinning at the still-shocked expression on the faces of Willow and her little group as the hacker continued to try and fail to regain control of the system. "As I said, it's trust me and _keep _the money, or take a chance on your own and _lose _it."

* * *

As he stood in the middle of his casino's security centre, listening impatiently to the voice on the other end of the line, Abrams only just managed to prevent himself from groaning in frustration at how things had turned out. He wasn't an idiot; he knew full well that if he agreed to let Lilah help him deal with the current problem, he'd end up owing her significantly, and if there was one thing he hated more than anything, it was owing someone something.

But, on the other hand, if things fell apart here and now, he'd end up losing all his money and a _significant _amount of his credibility.

It wasn't much of a contest.

"Buffy, get out of here," he said, waving the museum curator towards the door as he turned back to the call, barely even registering the annoyed expression on her face as she walked out of the door.

"Very well then, Miss Morgan," Abrams continued as he spoke into the phone, "I'll use your 'private line'. All I ask is simple; you get the money back- _all _of it- and we'll leave it at that. Clear?"

"_Crystal_," Lilah chuckled, before her expression became more serious. "_Oh, by the way, I'll need to do this by the book if we're going to put anyone away, so I might need to take at least _some _of the money away as evidence for the cops; you know, fingerprint tests and all that_."

Gritting his teeth slightly, Abrams tried to avoid yelling, but, in the end, he knew he didn't have much choice; if he didn't let Lilah do things her way, he'd never really figure out who was behind this…

And, right now, he _really _wanted to know who'd done this.

"All right," he said grimly, as he spoke into the phone. "Make the call."

"_Good choice_," Lilah smiled, as Abrams heard a brief click of fingers over the line; evidently a signal of some kind. "_I'll let you know when we've dealt with it_."

* * *

As she sat back to study the screens before her, Lilah chuckled once again as Willow, having finally come to the conclusion that any attempts on her part to regain control of her system were pointless, rapidly began issuing instructions to the others in the room to have the equipment dismantled before somebody discovered them.

If it had been up to her, of course, Lilah would have had _then _captured along with Angel, but Wesley had, regretfully, made his instructions quite clear; capture Angel, but let _everyone _else go.

_Well, I'll just have to see what I can do about changing Wes's mind about that_, Lilah mused to herself, as she watched one of her staff make the call to summon the security team, nodding in approval at him as he gave the thumbs-up to confirm that they were on their way.

"OK, the team's coming to you as we speak; they should be here in a matter of minutes," she said casually. "I'll call you when they've got the people responsible, OK?"

"_Fine_," Abrams said grimly; he clearly hated the idea of having to owe someone something, but was nevertheless acknowledging that he didn't have much of a choice if he was going to keep his money.

Not that Lilah could blame him for his attitude, really; she was pretty much the same when it came to protecting her 'investments'.

* * *

After waiting impatiently for a few minutes- during which he had been even _more _frustrated to learn that Lyman Zerga had apparently had a heart attack while he was busy attending to business with that 'Gunn' character- Abrams finally sighed in relief as he saw a van containing people who could only be the security staff Miss Morgan had mentioned entering the building via the main doors.

As he watched them move through the casino, Abrams had to admit that he was more than slightly impressed by their professionalism; they avoided paying any kind of attention to their surroundings, focusing exclusively on their designated task despite all the activity that currently surrounded them.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were working for somebody else, he could almost have admired them.

As it was, he just resented them; the more professional they were, the more efficient they were, the more he'd probably end up owing Miss Morgan once this was all over.

Still, as long as they got the job done, he supposed that he couldn't legitimately _complain _about their presence…

As Abrams watched their progress towards the vault, he took a brief opportunity to count their numbers- there was about seven of them, all carrying bulky-looking bags that presumably held any extra equipment that they may require. As they approached the vault, he nodded briefly at the men operating the elevator control system, watching grimly as the lift activated to allow the team access; they would, of course, be rappelling down the elevator shaft to prevent them from attracting too much attention from the three still down there, but they still needed the doors open at this point.

In a matter of moments, the money in the vault would be _his _once again, and all those in there would be marching off to a prison sentence that he would _ensure _would be the maximum penalty that his money could arrange, followed by the ruination of _everybody _even _remotely _connected to that little group…

He just wished he could pick out some kind of distinguishing feature about the three men inside the vault at the moment. Unfortunately, apart from the fact that one of them was significantly more muscular than the others, and one of them was slightly shorter than the other two, they were too well-covered to give anything important away about themselves.

As the team rappelled to the bottom of the shaft, Abrams waited for them to activate their night-vision goggles, before he nodded at his security manager.

"Cut the lights," he said simply.

With that, the lights in the vault suddenly terminated, leaving the screens in total darkness as the cameras cut out. As he listened into the SWAT frequency, Abrams smiled grimly as he heard the leader issue the order to enter the vault corridors…

Then he heard a new voice, distant and panicked- definitely _not _one of the SWAT team- and his eyes widened in horror.

"_Guys, someone's here_!" the voice yelled; it sounded like the speaker was relatively young, only in his early twenties at best.

"_Take him down_!" the team leader yelled at the rest of the group. "_Now_!"

There was a brief spurt of gunfire, and then there were a massive explosion, followed by a momentary silence before the team leader spoke again.

"_Lights_!" he yelled over the radio. "_We need power now_!"

A brief nod from Abrams was all the staff needed to encourage them to bring the power back online…

Then, the moment he saw the picture on the monitors, Abrams felt like punching the 'messenger'.

There on the screens in front of him, spread out like some demented landscape of destruction, smoke filled the vault as two of the security team's members pushed through the door as their associates helped to evacuate the unconscious guards.

Swearing under his breath, Abrams activated the intercom; he had a pretty good idea what had just happened, but he preferred to know himself.

"What's the situation down there?" he asked grimly.

"_They blew it_," the team leader replied, a somewhat apologetic tone in his voice; evidently he acknowledged that he'd screwed up and was prepared to acknowledge it.

"_They blew the... Oh, Jesus..._" the team leader added as he entered the vault, staring grimly around himself at the destruction. "_If there was anybody still in there, they're not in one piece anymore_."

Glaring grimly at his floor manager, Abrams narrowed his eyes as he processed what he'd just heard.

"Tell them to take the van," he said, indicating the team now in his vault. "I'm going down there."

As he turned to walk out of the control room, he turned to look at the manager, yelling as he departed the room, "And find out _how_ they _got into my system_!"

The manager didn't even try to point out that Abrams had left the actual process of selecting the computer systems for the casino up to other people; the mood his boss was in at the moment, he could every easily have somebody not only fired but put out a contract on their heads.

Faced with a choice between pointing out an error made by their 'perfect' boss (Perfect in the sense that he always said or did the right thing to put him one-up on everyone else, of course), and staying alive and employed, everyone in the casino would pick Option A every day of the week.

* * *

As he headed down towards the vault elevator, already wiping his hands to make sure that his fingerprints were clean for the scanner, Abrams growled low in his throat as he entered the elevator and typed in the access code to take him down.

He couldn't _believe _this had happened to _him_, of all people! He should _never _have listened to that Morgan bitch; if he hadn't allowed her 'personal security team' to take point in this screwed-up mess, this would _never _have happened…

As the elevator doors finally opened before him, Abrams marched into the now smoke-filled vault corridor. Ignoring the dazed guards that were now struggling to their feet and heading for the elevator with the aid of the security team, he walked up to the decimated vault door and studied it.

A moment's assessment was all he needed to confirm what he already knew; anything that had been inside that vault at the time of the explosion- people, money, Lyman Zerga's emeralds- could only have been destroyed.

"Mr Abrams?" the team's leader inquired from behind him as he stared grimly at the vault.

"Yes?" he said grimly, refusing to look around at the man; punching somebody may make him feel better, but it wouldn't help anything.

"We couldn't find any survivors," the man said apologetically. "Or, I'm afraid, any of your money. I'm sorry, sir."

Gritting his teeth, Abrams stared grimly ahead of himself, refusing to respond to anybody as he tried to prevent himself from just _punching _the people who'd failed him; not only would it create the wrong impression of himself, but the helmets they were wearing would only bruise his hand.

"Take your men out," he stated grimly as he stared ahead of himself. "_Now_."

Nodding briefly, the team leader turned to look at the rest of his group.

"OK guys," he said, nodding at them, "grab your gear and clear out."

As the team departed, Abrams crouched down to look in frustration at the paper spread out on the floor of his vault.

_Damnit_… he mused to himself. _All the time that must have gone into planning something like this, and those goddamn _bastards _go and blow up my own goddamn _vault _rather than be captured…_

Then his eyes fully processed what he was looking at, and widened in shock.

The paper lying around him at the moment was _not _the money he'd had in his vault.

They were all flyers for a call-girl service.

_But _how? Abrams mused to himself. _We _saw _them putting that money in the bags_…


	20. Aftermath

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.

**Feedback:** Please do.

**Challenge: **_Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you._

Angel's Eleven

Then Abrams noticed something _else _that was currently on the floor, and his eyes widened in revelation as he raised the walkie-talkie he'd brought down to the vault to his mouth.

"Cue up the tape of the robbery," he said grimly. He paused for a moment to give his staff the chance to respond to his order, and then spoke again. "Does it say 'Bellagio' on the south wall of the vault?"

Abrams only had to wait a moment to hear the answer he'd been expecting to receive.

"_No, sir_," the manager said, his voice clearly confused. "_It doesn't. I– I don't understand..._"

Abrams sighed slightly as inspiration hit him.

It was an elaborate scheme, but it was the only way any of this made sense.

"We had that installed on Tuesday," he said grimly into the radio. "The image we saw of the men robbing us was a tape."

"_What_?" the manager said over the radio.

"Someone built a double of my vault, then made a tape of them robbing it," Abrams explained grimly as he stared at the empty room around him. "When we saw them putting money in those bags, that _wasn't actually happening_."

* * *

Up in the security centre, Walsh's jaw dropped as he watched the tape again. 

If it wasn't for that missing sign, he would have genuinely believed that this _was _the vault below him…

"Then, sir…" he said, as he spoke uncertainly into the radio, unwilling to attract his boss's anger but equally unwilling to leave his curiosity unsatisfied, "what happened to all the money?"

For a moment, there was silence as the manager waited for Abrams to respond to his query, until he spoke once again, a low growl in his voice.

"_Get me Lilah Morgan_," he said grimly. "_I have something I wish to… check… myself_."

* * *

As Wesley walked out of the casino, sweating slightly under the team helmet that had been all that was concealing his identity from the surrounding guests, he smirked slightly at the thought of how Lilah had been manipulated into their scheme for revenge. 

The team had been aware of Lilah's presence as soon as the former Head of the Special Ops division of Wolfram & Hart's L.A. branch had arrived in Las Vegas; even after so many years away, Angel still had a couple of contacts here and there that had been keeping an eye on the staff of Wolfram & Hart who'd managed to stay in business after their office had been demolished.

Deciding that it was too good an opportunity to pass up, Angel and Wesley had come up with a modified version of the heist to incorporate Lilah's presence. Fortunately, Lilah and Wesley had once had a 'relationship' of sorts, back when Wesley had fallen out with the rest of the group and needed something, _anything_, to make him feel accepted by somebody. Although the encounters between them had been primarily sexual rather than anything else, a relationship of sorts had eventually developed, but it had ended when Wesley returned to the rest of the team.

With this in mind, Angel had arranged for Wesley to contact Lilah, with Wesley claiming that he resented Angel's automatic takeover of everything he'd established by himself in the last few years and wished to have his old employer 'eliminated'. Using Wesley's inside information on the heist, Lilah had arranged a private security team to eliminate the group after learning that the team intended to 'hijack' the casino's 911 line- they actually _had _been planning to do that before Lilah showed up-, little suspecting that the entire security team had been replaced by the members of Angel's team before she even got around to contacting them.

Even her video feed to Willow's room had been tapped into almost as soon as the camera had been installed; the footage Lilah had been shown of Willow reacting to her monitors shutting down had been taped and set up long before the heist had even started. With all that sorted out, the only remaining tricky bit had been to whip up a ticket out of the country for that night in Lilah's name- along with all the necessary documentation to provide a credible reason for her to _want _the money in the first place- and get it into her room without her noticing. However, it had soon been sorted; taking advantage of their room service disguises, Faith and Gwen had hidden an envelop containing the plane ticket, along with files containing contracts and plans for the construction of her new law practice, under a couple of magazines in Lilah's room when they went into her room 'by accident'. That part had been particularly risky- if Lilah had seen the envelope she might have suspected something- but, in the end, luck was on their side, and she hadn't so much as glanced at the table where the corner of the envelope stuck out between a couple of magazines.

The last part of the heist, of course, hadn't been easy. Unwilling to recruit any more people- Angel bringing in Xander to beat him up had been pushing their luck as it was- Wesley's mock 'security team' had, by virtue of necessity, consisted of the remaining members of the group, regardless of their age or physical condition. There'd been more than the occasional moment when Wesley had been sure they'd be discovered; Giles, the oldest one of the team- although none of them would have ever _called _him old to his face- had nearly ended up stuck at the top of the elevator shaft when they'd needed to rappel downwards, and Willow, Gwen and Faith had been forced to wear their bulletproof vests open to limit the discomfort on their… chests. Wesley had been constantly worried that they'd be discovered at the final hurdle by one of those little details- the entrance of the SWAT team had been the one bit of the vault raid they _couldn't _record for risk of giving the game away by having something in the corridor not _quite _lining up with something in the real corridor.

However, in the end, that hadn't been an issue; the lights had been cut before anyone could see anything, their mock 'script' of what to do in the vault had gone exactly according to plan, and, as far as everyone up in the monitoring room was concerned, the vault had exploded while Wesley and his team had removed the money in their originally empty bags; the bags they'd carried in had been padded out with cardboard boxes, making them appear full while really being practically empty.

All in all, everything about the plan so far had gone exactly as they'd hoped.

All Wesley could do now was hope that Abrams reacted _exactly_ as they'd guessed he would, and that he got to Lilah's room before she fully realized what had just taken place…

* * *

Back inside the casino, Abrams was already marching angrily through the corridors of the casino's back rooms, heading directly for the room that he'd specifically set aside for his less… pleasant… activities; in other words, the ones he _didn't _want to be recorded by the security staff. 

As he reached the door, he rounded on the two security guards, a piercing glare in his eyes as he studied them.

"Where's Angelus?" he asked bluntly.

"Still inside, sir," one of them said. "With Harris; they've really been going at it in there."

Abrams nodded grimly at that, before he raised his sleeves to straighten his cuffs- it would at least give him some time to cool off before the upcoming confrontation- and then nodded at the guards.

"Open that door," he said bluntly.

As soon as the door opened before him, Abrams witnessed the welcome sight of Liam Angelus sustaining a clearly painful left hook to the jaw, sending him staggering back into the table. As Harris stepped back upon seeing him enter, allowing Abrams a better view of his 'target', the casino owner grimly nodded as he took in Angelus' battered appearance; he seemed barely able to stand, his clothes were badly rumbled from being tossed about, his lip was bleeding, and he had a black eye, with the other one looking like it would soon follow suit.

However, he was clearly still relatively aware of his surroundings; after a few seconds, Angelus glanced up at the casino owner, a small sarcastic little smile on his face.

"Heya, Abrams," he said, raising one hand dazedly. "How's the other fight going?"

"Did you have a hand in this?" Abrams stated simply, ignoring the other man's tone; he was _going _to stay calm and get the information he was after, no matter how tempting it might be to just hit the bastard in front of him.

"Did I have a hand in what?" Angelus countered, tilting his head to one side in confusion.

For a moment, Abrams was almost tempted to believe the man was bluffing, but then he glanced between Angelus and Harris and decided that couldn't be the case; the animosity between these two was well-known to him, and those bleeding knuckles of Harris' definitely _couldn't _be faked.

"Get him out of here," he said, waving impatiently at the security goons on either side of him as he stepped forward, glaring the other man directly in the eyes.

"What happened, Abrams; did you get robbed or something?" Angelus retorted, as the goons grabbed his arms and prepared to march him out of the room, Harris choosing to make a quick departure from the scene in question…

_After _leaving a little extra something down on the table behind him, in the form of a small camera the same colour as the table it sat on; noticeable if you were looking for it, but hardly the kind of thing that would register with a casual glance.

* * *

Meanwhile, upstairs in Abrams' private suite, Buffy Summers had just sat down on the bed, inwardly fuming at how the recent events had turned out- her night out at the fight had been a disappointment even _before _Parker kicked her out like that- when, much to her surprise, a phone rang in her coat pocket. 

_What the_…? She mused to herself in confusion, as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. _Where did _this _come from?_

Still, she supposed it couldn't do any harm to answer it now that it was ringing…

Confused but nevertheless determined to get answers, Buffy raised the phone to her ear and hit the 'Accept Call' button.

"Yes?" she asked

"_Turn to Channel 88_," a voice said on the other end of the line just before it cut out.

Buffy blinked briefly in surprise- that voice had sounded suspiciously familiar- but, as curious as ever, she reached over, picked up the TV remote control, and turned the television onto the directed channel…

Revealing a picture of Angel and Parker looking at each other in front of a door, Angel bruised, battered and bleeding as he stared at her current lover.

"Oh my God…" Buffy whispered as she stared at her ex. "What the Hell…?"

Even when he'd been in fights back when they'd run the detective agency, Angel had _never _taken that much damage.

"_I will ask you one last time_," Parker stated, as he glared at Angel; Buffy vaguely registered that two people she vaguely recognized as employees of the casino were holding Angel's arms, but she couldn't tell if he needed them to stay standing or if they were just holding him back. "_Do you know what happened to my money_?"

"_Always with the money, aren't you, Abrams_?" Angel retorted, holding Parker's gaze despite his own battered condition. "_What _would _you give up to get it back, anyway? Buffy_?"

"_Yes_," Parker stated without hesitation.

Buffy's eyes widened in rage at what she'd just heard.

_That low down… no good… sonnova _BITCH! She fumed.

She didn't even need to see any more; what she'd seen so far was enough.

The fact that he hadn't even hesitated in his reply clinched it for her; Angel would _never _have just let her go like that.

* * *

"Well, that's very interesting," Angel said as he looked at Abrams, trying to exaggerate just how dazed he was- it hadn't been easy to apply the necessary make-up to make him look like he'd taken more of a beating than he actually had- as he spoke, "but I didn't have anything to do with it." 

For a moment, there was silence as the two men stared at each other, and then Abrams leaned forwards to speak in a low voice directly into Angel's ear.

"If it wasn't for the fact that I already _have _an obvious suspect for this whole mess, I'd be contacting the police for violating your parole," he said grimly.

Then he stepped back, his arms folded as he looked critically at the ex-detective. "As it is, I don't give a shit what you do either way, so I'm giving you one chance; get out of here, and make that you never even set _foot _inside my casino again."

"Check," Angel replied, nodding with a slight smile at the man in front of him, before the goons took a firmer grip of his arms and hauled him out of the room.

* * *

"_Sir_?" the security manager's voice said over the radio clipped to Abrams' belt, just as Angelus was taken around the corner and out of his sight. "_We've got Miss Morgan here_." 

Abrams chuckled slightly at that news.

Maybe Angelus wasn't responsible for this mess- his battered condition leant weight to the idea that he'd been an 'innocent' in this particular attack on his casinos- but Abrams knew for a _fact _that Miss Morgan _had _to be; what other explanation could there be but the explanation that it was _her _'security team' that had carried the money out of the vault?

As he walked out of the back corridors, back into the casino, and began to head towards the elevators that would take him back to the main security centre, he was unable to stop a slight grin from crossing his face.

It wouldn't get his money back, but he would _certainly _enjoy seeing Morgan squirm when confronted with her duplicity…

Then, just as he was turning towards the elevators, one of them opened and Buffy Summers marched out, her head held high as she swept by him without even a glance in his direction.

"Buffy?" Abrams said, looking in confusion at her.

Halting briefly in her tracks, Buffy turned to glare at him as though he was something unpleasant she'd found on her shoe.

"You of all people should know, _Parker_," she said grimly, spitting out his name like it was a curse. "In your hotel, there's _always_ someone watching."

With that, she turned around and walked towards the casino exit, leaving Abrams to stare after her, his expression unreadable.

_Great_, he mused to himself as he entered the elevator.

Now he was down a hundred and sixty million _and _one woman; not only was his reputation in the _professional _world going to be tarnished, but his _personal _life had taken a serious knock at the same time.

* * *

As Buffy stepped out of the casino, glancing around herself, already resolved to send for her stuff as soon as she had found herself a decent apartment, her eyes fell on Angel as he was roughly shoved out of the casino's back entrance. 

"Oh my God… _Angel_!" she yelled, hurrying towards him as the door slammed shut behind him. Turning to look in her direction, Angel smiled slightly and opened his arms, which Buffy willingly leapt into, only remembering the moment _after _she'd grabbed him that he must still be tender from his earlier beating…

Then she realized that he wasn't wincing in pain from having her arms around him, and drew back to look at him in shock.

"What the… you're _OK_?" she said, staring incredulously at him. "But… but you were…"

"Beaten half to death by Abrams' goons?" Angel asked, chuckling slightly. "Nah, it was exaggerated; we faked the worst of my injuries so he wouldn't know I was involved in the heist."

"Oh- wait a minute, _heist_?" Buffy yelled, pulling back from Angel as she stared incredulously at him. "Are you telling me that… you just _robbed _Parker Abrams?"

"Hey, he got his money thanks to financial assistance from Wolfram & Hart," Angel said, shrugging slightly at her. "What was I _supposed _to do, let him get away with working with those scumbags?"

Buffy's eyes widened in shock.

She'd always suspected that Abrams- she was _not _going to call him 'Parker' any more, not even in her head- hadn't exactly risen to the position he was in via legitimate methods, but to be associated with Wolfram & Hart…

"Tell me you did some _serious _damage to him, please?" she asked her old lover.

Angel nodded in confirmation.

"The entire vault's cleared out, and Lilah Morgan was framed for the whole thing," he said nonchalantly. "Had to get most of the gang back together for it, but it still comes out to a pretty decent amount of cash for all concerned; over thirteen million for all eleven of us."

"Hold on; _eleven_?" Buffy said, looking at Angel in surprise. "You pulled off something like this with only _eleven _people?"

"Essentially, yeah," Angel replied, smiling affectionately at her as he jerked his thumb back at the main entrance to the casino. "The place lost practically all the money it had in the vault tonight in a matter of minutes, we're dividing it equally between us, and, as far as Mr Abrams is concerned, I was just the ex-boyfriend in the wrong place at the wrong time when Miss Lilah Morgan, formerly of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles branch, attempted to rip him off to get the money to set up her own firm."

"Ah," Buffy said simply, as she looked inquiringly at Angel. "You've backed the story up, I take it?"

"Contracts and plans for the new law practice- along with a plane ticket out of the country, of course- are all in a file in her room that Abrams can't _fail _to find if he's got at least half a brain in that head of his," Angel replied, chuckling slightly as he turned to look at the casino before him. "It cost a lot to draw that stuff up, of course, but I think I can safely say it was _more _than worth it."

"Not bad," Buffy said, nodding briefly before she turned to look inquisitively at Angel, a small, teasing grin on her face. "So… now that you've dealt with some of the last remnants of Wolfram & Hart, going to keep up the detective business?"

"Maybe…" Angel replied, an equally teasing grin on his face as he looked back at her, before his face fell. "Uh… before I go any further here, I should tell you… one of my team was Connor."

"Conn- wait, _the _Connor?" Buffy said, pulling back and looking wide-eyed at Angel. "As in, your son with Darla?"

"Yeah…" Angel said, nodding awkwardly at Buffy. "I _know_ that he's a touchy subject and all that, but I really feel that I've got a chance to get to know him now, and-"

Buffy raised a hand to his mouth.

"Stop," she said simply. "Looking back on that whole thing… well, I think I overreacted at the time."

Noting Angel's surprised expression, she shrugged in a nonchalant manner. "I _was _angry at the time, I'm not denying that, but, now that I've had more time to think about it, I get that you never really thought you'd _need _to tell me- you'd wanted him to have a life of his own and all that, so it wasn't like you'd ever _expect _him to get involved in your life- and…"

She shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't mind getting to know him, really."

Looking back at her for a moment, Angel smiled warmly at the woman he loved.

"You're great, you know that?" he said simply.

"I try," Buffy replied.

Smiling broadly at her once again, Angel wrapped her up in his arms and gave her a deep, passionate kiss, Buffy eagerly returning the kiss as she wrapped her own arms around him, each savouring the feeling of having the one they loved back with them once again…

Finally, Angel pulled away from her and slung an arm over her shoulder.

"C'mon," he said, indicating the street before them. "What do you say I introduce you to the rest of the team, and then we see about getting everything going once again?"

"Pick up where we left off?" Buffy asked, smiling affectionately at the ex-convict as they began to walk down the Strip, leaving the Bellagio behind them. "I kind of like the sound of that…"


End file.
